History of Bay County, Michigan, and representative citizens, Part 26

Author: Gansser, Augustus H., 1872-
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond & Arnold
Number of Pages: 738

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cars, according to grades, and these are pushed over the tramway to their respective piles. About 75 per cent. of the output of modern sawmills are stock boards. The rest are mill culls, for home consumption, and shipping culls for shipment. The slabs which years ago went to waste in the refuse burners are to-day cut up for staves, lath, and shingles or box boards, and the remainder is cut in stove lengths for fire-wood, and commands good prices. Fortunes have been wasted in the old, crude manner of sawing logs and the reckless slaughter of the pines, when only the best was preserved, and all else went to waste.

When Judge Albert Miller laid out the prospective village of Portsmouth, he realized that his first requirement would be a sawmill, to supply the lumber for the homes of the prospective settlers, for there seemed to be tim- ber enough along the river to supply all the then known world. In 1836 Cromwell Bar- ney began the erection of the framework for the sawmill, while Judge Miller went to Huron, Ohio, to buy a second-hand engine and machin- ery. The influx of immigrants from New York and the East kept all the lake craft busy and, as it was then November, it took Judge Miller two weeks at Detroit before he bought the schooner "Elizabeth Ward" for $2.000 to make the trip, he to furnish his own crew. After placing all the machinery aboard, to- gether with several thousand dollars worth of provisions, the boat started up the Detroit River, November 22, 1836. The Indian trail to Flint was deep with mud, and he had to leave his horse at Flint, and continue home on foot. When he reached home he found the river frozen over solidly, and no sign from the vessel ! Daily for a week he went to the mouth of the river on the ice, but to no purpose,- the boat never came. Finally he learned that his captain and four $2.50 per day sailors had

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tied up at Port Huron and were living easy on his supplies! Judge Miller made another trying trip to Port Huron, where he fired the crew, and arranged to have the machinery hauled over on sleds, which had to cross the wilds of St. Clair, Macomb, Oakland, Genes- see and Saginaw counties, a lurid experience, full of hazards and hardships! But by April I, 1837, the mill was ready for operations, and that day the first pine log was cut within the borders of Bay County. The mill erected under such primitive and trying circumstances was soon silenced by the panic of 1837, and all the fond hopes of the farseeing mill operator were shattered for awhile.

In 1841 James McCormick and his son, James J. McCormick, came from the Titta- bawassee Indian field, and reopened the mill. They shipped the first boat-load of lumber to Detroit in 1842, the cut being 60 per cent. uppers, for which they received $8 per thous- and, one third down, the rest in eight and 10 months! The "Conneaut Packet," Capt. George Raby commanding, carried this first load of lumber out of the wood-bound stream. Thousands of cargoes followed in after years, following mainly the course of that first boat- load down the Detroit River. James J. Mc- Cormick operated the mill until 1849, when the gold fever called him to California. It was destroyed by fire in 1862.

In 1844-45 James Fraser, in association with Cromwell Barney and Israel Catlin, erected the water-mill at Kawkawlin. In 1845-46 the first sawmill was built in Bay City proper, by James Fraser, Hopkins and Pome- roy, on the site where 60 years after, Samuel G. M. Gates is still busy converting logs into lumber! In 1847 James Fraser and Israel Catlin built the mill, later known as the Jen- nison & Rouse mill, on Water street, between 9th street and Mckinley avenue. More than

a dozen mills sprang up along the river front from 1850 to 1854, and by 1857 there were already 14 mills, the output of each mill aver- aging from 1,500,000 to 4,000,000 feet per annum.

When Bay City began its corporate exist- ence in 1865, there were 18 sawmills in opera- tion on the East Side, six on the West Side and one at Kawkawlin. Here are those pioneer mills with their output in that memorable year : Nathan B. Bradley, 6,800,000 feet; Fay & Gates, 4,500,000; Samuel Pitts, 6,800,000; Watrous & Southworth, 3,000,000; Young, 1,200,000; Miller & Post, 4,000,000; Peter & Lewis, 4,000,000; James J. McCormick, 4,- 400,000; J. F. Rust Company 4,000,000; James Watson, 3,000,000; William Peter, 7,- 200,000 ; Miller & Company, 6,000,000; H. M. Bradley, 4,000,000; Jennison & Catlin, 3,500,- 000; James Shearer, 6,815,000; Dolson & Walker, 1,500,000; McEwan & Fraser, 6,000,- 000; Braddock, 3,000,000. Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, Samuel G. M. Gates, and Charles E. Jennison alone remain, to celebrate with us this 40th anniversary of that season. On the West Side, the Huron Company cut 3, 180,000 feet; Sage & McGraw, 9,000,000; Drake Brothers, 3,000,000; Bolton, 5,500,000; Tay- lor & Moulthrop, 6,000,000; Moore & Smith, 7,000,000; while the Kawkawlin mill cut 5,- 000,000 feet.

George W. Hotchkiss, historian of Bay City in 1876, the centennial year, in accordance with the suggestion made to the cities of the country by President Rutherford B. Hayes, speaks of those early mills in the Lumberman's Exchange as follows: "These sawmills all used gate, muley or circular saws, producing 200,000,000 feet of lumber and 2,000,000 cords of sawdust annually. The saws were six-gauge circulars, swayed to four-gauge, and the sawdust heap rivaled the lumber pile!"

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Sage & McGraw were the first to introduce the modern gang-saw. In 1880 there were 32 sawmills, but their capacity was three times that of the 24 mills along the river here in 1865. In 1865 it cost almost as much to handle the sawdust and slabs as it did to handle the lumber produced, but all this changed with the general introduction of the small-gauge gang-saws. In 1853 a local mill-owner wagered a bottle of champagne that his circu- lar-saw would average 1,500 feet per hour all day! He won, but it took his edger crew half the night to clear up the lumber such an unus- ual cut had buried them under! The gang- saws changed all this, averaging from 6,000 to 9,000 feet per hour, and the edgers cut now with the double edger.

The list of mills on the river here had the new additions, in 1875, of Brooks & Adams, Charles M. Smith & Company and Laderbach Brothers, Salzburg; Keystone Salt & Lumber Company, Banks; and Chapin & Barber, John Carrier Company, Hay, Butman & Company, Eddy, Avery & Company, S. H. Webster, Pitts & Cranage, Folsom & Arnold, Rust & Company, Ames Brothers, and J. M. Rouse, on the East Side, with cuts for the year running from 1,000,000 to the 15,000,000 feet, cut by the Sage mill. In 1879 the West Side had the mills of R. J. Briscoe, E. J. Hargrave, who in 1905 is still sawing away at the good old mill on the Middle Ground; L. L. Hotchkiss, Murphy & Dorr, W. H. Malone, now interested in B. H. Briscoe & Company; B. W. Mer- rick, and Peter Smith & Sons. The junior members of the last named firm, Peter C. and Charles J. Smith, are still in the harness in 1905. The East Side had added the mills of F. E. Bradley, S. McLean & Son, Miller & Lewis, A. Chesbrough and the mammoth plant of T. H. McGraw & Company. The cut of the Sage mill in 1880 was 29,388,976 feet,

while McGraw passed this great record easily with 34,000,000 feet! The total for 1880 was 422,783,14I feet of lumber, in addition to lath, staves, shingles, etc .! The billion mark was next set and passed by the collective efforts of all the mills in Bay County. What wonder that the forests vanished like a dream of the night before this onslaught, and by 1885 the question of log supply began to haunt the plans of the mill owners and operators. Ten years later, Congress cut off the only remaining supply of pine logs in Canada, and the death knell had sounded for the main industry here for the 60 years since the first mill was started by Judge Miller.

As we look back over the lumber data for those 60 years, we cannot help but marvel at the good fortune attending its development. For after all there must be a demand for lum- ber, before so many sawmills could be profit- ably operated. And the growth of our lumber industry during all those years merely kept pace with the growth and development of the country at large, and more particularly of the Middle West. New wood-working industries sprang up, demanding the product of our mills, and seldom was there much of the manufac- tured product left unsold upon the river docks during all those years. Since these cities were then altogether dependent upon the lumber industry, the weal and woes of the lumebr trade were of vital importance to the entire community. The artisan, mechanic, laborer, merchant, and farmer, all felt the beneficent influence of good lumber prices and ready sales.

Until 1885 the mill workers were content to work 12 hours each day during the summer season, and each winter most of them went into the lumber woods and logging camps for the same employers. With the advent of shorter hours of labor for many crafts all over

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the country, and the very evident limitations of Michigan's future log supply, the sawmill employes also sought to improve their working conditions. "Ten hours or no sawdust" was their slogan, and for a few weeks in that year the mills were idle. But prices of lumber were high, the demand great, experienced sawyers scarce, and the men were eventually granted the 10 hour work day, which prevails in the various branches of the lumber industry all over the country to this day.

With the advent of other and varied indus- tries, the hardwood logging camps have found it quite difficult to find swampers, skidders, and sawyers who understand the business and are willing to go into the woods, and consequently wages for this work have also materially in- creased in recent years.

Considerable logging is still being done in Garfield, Gibson and Mount Forest townships, supplying the woodenware works and hoop fac- tories. Portable sawmills move about the west- ern townships, clearing the land now wanted for farming and furnishing the lumber for the homes, barns and fences of the rural inhabi- tants. These wooded townships have for years supplied the oak timber for Davidson's ship- yard, and thousands of feet have been shipped abroad, much of it going to England in earlier years. The oak timber was very large and of the best quality, but is now almost exhausted in this immediate vicinity. Tamarack, for upper deck beams and similar ship-building purposes, plenty of fine oak timber, and tall straight pines for masts and spars, made the construction of wooden ships here both easy and profitable. For many years, oak timber delivered in the river brought $165 per 1,000 cubic feet. Red oak figures to this day largely in the manufacture of staves and is still quite plentiful in the territory tributary to Bay City.

Since brick and asphalt are the favored

paving materials, the cedar of this vicinity goes largely into railroad work and fence posts.

Bird's-eye and other maple abound in this vicinity, as do birch, beech, hemlock, white ash, butternut and similar woods of great value for the furniture and carriage-building busi- ness, but until now such lumber has been shipped to Grand Rapids and other furniture manufacturing centers. Apparently no one has ever thought of saving all that freight on the timber and lumber, by putting up those factories in the midst of this timber supply, cheap fuel and our easy and cheap shipping facilities! Elm and black ash still abound here, and are used extensively in the manufac- ture of barrels, staves and hoops.

The soft woods, such as bass, poplar, etc., also abound hereabouts, making excellent pulp for making paper, and several of the less well situated and smaller cities to the north have within recent years erected large tanneries and paper pulp mills, while somehow, here too, Bay City's preeminent advantages have been totally overlooked.

Plaining mills and box factories have to some extent replaced the great sawmills, but there is still much room for kindred wood- working industries.

The rejuvenated Bay City Board of Trade should make a study of these industries, their source of raw material supply, and similar ad- vantages and seek to secure some of these mod- ern plants for this city. With the combined efforts of both sides of the river, there is still a chance to develop industries for the finer manipulation of the remaining timber and lum- ber supply, which once established are bound to bring kindred institutions to this locality. Pine is no longer king here, but there are still thousands of acres of other and equally valu- able timber tracts within easy hauling distance

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of Bay City, and with proper study and en- couragement, new and even more profitable branches of the lumber industry could be brought here. This is conclusively proven by the roster of our sawmills still in operation in 1905, with their constantly increasing business in mixed hardwood, as enumerated in the leading industries of Greater Bay City.

A roster of the sawmills still in operation in 1905, the survivors of our "Piny Days," will include the Courval mill, the Detroit mill and those of Wyllie & Buell, J. J. Flood, Knee- land-Bigelow Company, E. J. Hargrave, J. R. Hitchcock, Kern Manufacturing Company, Campbell-Brown Lumber Company, and Sam- tel G. M. Gates. The log supply comes en- tirely from the north by rail, branch roads tap- ping the very heart of the timber belt, and the mills are no longer dependent upon the snow and ice of winter or the floods of spring to haul and flood their log supply precariously to the mill boom. The W. D. Young & Company's hardwood plant in Salzburg is one of the largest of its kind in the world. The lumber-yards of Mershon, Schuette, Parker & Company, E. B. Foss & Company, and Bradley, Miller & Com- pany, the last named on the West Side, are immense institutions, whose busy docks are vivid reminders of the palmiest days of this great industry. All have large planing-mills and accessories, where the lumber is finished for the finer trade. A score of smaller plants are engaged in the same line of the lumber trade, and altogether Bay County still ranks high in the country's statistics of the lumber industry.

SALT.

The act admitting Michigan into the Union of States, passed by Congress in 1836, provided among other things that all salt springs in the

State, not exceeding 12 in number, with six sections of land adjoining each, might be selected by the State, and in pursuance thereof the Legislature in July, 1836, authorized the Governor to make the selection. Most of the lands selected were in the Grand River basin, one was selected at the mouth of the Salt River on the Tittabawassee. Dr. Houghton, State geologist, commenced boring for salt and con- tinued until June 15, 1838, when his appropria- tion was exhausted and the work abandoned. It was Dr. Houghton's opinion at that time that the center of the salt basin was the Sagi- naw Valley.

In 1859 Judge James Birney, of Bay City, succeeded in getting a bill through the Legisla- ture providing for a bounty of 10 cents per bushel on salt. This stimulated more boring, and in June, 1860, the flow of brine was struck 600 feet beneath the surface. All the business men in the valley at once came down with the "salt fever !"

The Portsmouth Salt Company was organ- ized March 13, 1860, with James J. McCor- mick, Appleton Stevens, B. F. Beckwith, A. D. Braddock. Albert Miller, Charles E. Jennison, WV. Daglish and William R. McCormick as in- corporators. The Bay City Salt Company filed its articles of association May 18. 1860, James Fraser, D. H. Fitzhugh, H. M. Fitz- hugh, Curtis Munger and Algernon S. Munger being the incorporators. In June, 1861, the South End company produced the first salt in Bay County. The Bay City company had their well on the site of the Michigan Pipe Company's plant. The two were sunk pur- posely far apart, as there were many people who believed that the supply of brine would soon be exhausted at the rate wells were going down.

However it has since been found that there is an inexhaustible supply of brine rock under-

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lying Bay County, and that a limitless supply of fine brine may be secured for the mere pumping. For more than 40 years this pump- ing has been going on here, and the supply is as good and plenty as ever.

The North American Chemical Company came here chiefly because of this flow of brine, and they would also like to secure rock salt for some of their chemicals. In 1901 they bored to a depth of 3,500 feet, without striking the salt rock, and the drill becoming fast, the work was abandoned. Another attempt is soon to be made, as geologists are satisfied that this salt rock does exist. The coal mine shafts have not touched it because they do not go down that far. Oddly enough, the boring for these salt-wells all went through the exten- sive vein of bituminous coal, but the borers were intent on salt, and passed everything else by.

The brine of the Bay County salt-wells stands at 96 and 98 by the salinmeter, and is quite free from troublesome impurities, or "bitter water" as the salt trade calls them. Dr. S. S. Garrigues was the first salt inspector ap- pointed by the Governor, and from that day to this the inspection of the salt has been rigid, and the supply to the markets of the world correspondingly pure and wholesome. The cheap means of securing good barrels here pre- sented from the first a ready and good means of salt packing.

The original kettle system of evaporation early gave way to the pan system, where the exhaust steam from the sawmills did the work of evaporation. This kept the cost of produc- tion at a minimum, and provided new uses for the waste materials of the sawmills. The brine of Canada is equally good, and labor cheaper, but by this means the local salt-wells managed to compete with them successfully. The ear- liest salt shipments brought $1.40 per barrel,

and the cost of manufacture in connection with the sawmills was computed at from 60 to 80 cents per barrel. This included all labor, cost of barrel and packing. It will readily be seen that there was a good margin at first, but the price gradually came down.

Bay County salt has long been distin- guished in the world's markets, because it does not cake in the barrels, a characteristic of all rock salts. This non-caking quality makes Bay County salt very desirable, but it has been found that the producers of caking rock salt have placed false labels on their product, hav- ing it appear as Saginaw Valley salt. This in- duced the Legislature in April, 1905, to send a committee to Chicago and other salt shipping points to investigate these impositions, with a view to passing a law making this a criminal offense.

The salt produced by the North American Chemical Company is shipped almost exclu- sively to Chicago and Duluth, in barrels and in bulk, as the trade demands, the shipments be- ing made in large quantities by water. Their new loading device will handle 100 tons of salt per hour, and will expedite their salt business. This mammoth plant now has 27 wells in op- eration, all being down 1,000 feet, and the blocks supplied with the very latest devices for securing absolutely pure salt. The results are naturally far in advance of the earlier salt- wells and blocks.

The mill-owners were quick to see the profits of running salt-wells in connection with their sawmills, and by 1865 practically every sawmill had its salt-block annex. In 1865 over $700,000 was invested in the salt industry here, and the output exceeded 200,000 barrels. As the mills increased, so did the salt-wells, and in 1880 the production in Bay County was more than 900,000 barrels. In 1882 the State inspection was made on 1, 158,279 barrels, of

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which 439,996 barrels were shipped by water, and over 550,000 barrels by rail.

The price declined steadily, as the produc- tion increased, and in 1882 was down to 70 cents per barrel. In 1876 the salt manufactur- ers organized the Salt Association of Michi- gan, Judge Albert Miller being vice-president, and Thomas Cranage, treasurer, with John McEwan, J. R. Hall, J. L. Dolsen, H. M. Bradley and H. C. Moore, of Bay City, on the executive board. The capital stock was $200,- 000, in 8,000 shares at $25 each. Bay City had 15 out of 48 share-holders. Every man- ufacturer in becoming a share-holder of the as- sociation is obliged to execute and deliver a contract for all salt manufactured by him, or a lease of his salt manufacturing property. Each member makes salt only on the associa- tion's account, while the board of directors has the power to determine the rate of advance in the price of salt, and it also has the power of appointing traveling or resident agents for the sale of the salt. Such was this "Salt Trust" in 1881, a very prototype of the much abused combination of industry and capital,-the trust of 1905. But here the consumer could not complain, because the price of table salt has always been extremely low, owing to the un- limited supply of this valley and its cheap pro- duction. The remaining salt-wells are inde- pendent of the salt trust organized in the East some years ago.

Salt is given some attention in the 22d an- nual report, Michigan Bureau of Labor, for the year 1904. The report quotes the rapid in- crease of the salt industry in the salt basin dur- ing the palmy days of the lumber industry. It goes on to say that coal has to a large extent become the fuel for operating the remaining salt-wells, and unlike many other kindred in- dustries, which were crippled by the exit of the lumber industry, the manufacture of salt seems

to be little affected. Bay County now has four of the 41 salt manufacturing institutions in Michigan. With coal proving so easy of access in the salt basin of Central Michigan, the State authorities anticipate the gradual revival of the salt industry, as many savings are now ac- complished that in Michigan will make up the difference in the cost of fuel. This official re- port for the year 1904 shows four plants in operation in Bay County, which have been in business for an average of 12 years. The ag- gregate cost of these four plants is given at $106,000, an average of $26,500 per plant ; ag- gregate annual cost of repairs, $10,472, an average of $2,618 per plant; aggregate daily capacity, 1,445 barrels, an average of 361 per plant ; aggregate number of barrels made in 1904, 272,502, an average of 68,125, while in 1903 the aggregate was 298.986 barrels, an average of 74.746. Thirty-six per cent. of the product was sold in bulk, 47 per cent. in bar- rels and 17 per cent. in table packages ; 55 per cent. of the output in Bay County was sold in the State. The average daily wages were $1.67 and 142 people were employed.

COAL.

The historian of Bay City in 1876 had his suspicions that underneath his feet at no great depth was a good layer of bituminous coal, for had not the drills for salt-wells often brought up bits of coal from strata of unknown thick- ness? Even before that date Corunna, 40 miles to the south, had a mine in full opera- tion. Outcroppings of coal were also found all about the valley, particularly to the south and east. But the populace at Bay City was too busy slaughtering the pines, to care much whether that vein of coal was three inches or three feet thick. The refuse of the sawmills

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furnished plenty and cheap fuel, hence there was no particular demand for cheap coal. But the chronicler of 1876 was certain that coal did exist here, and he was equally certain, that when veins worth working were opened, iron manufacture in all its forms would come to re- place the lumber industry. His first surmise has since been amply verified, and we heartily endorse his belief, that the iron and copper ore of the Lake Superior region could be brought here cheaper than to any of its present manu- facturing points, having all the other advan- tages offered by their present location, and some good ones in addition thereto. Hence it would seem that the business interests of Greater Bay City should also take this propo- sition in hand, through its Board of Trade. Once convinced that we have all the facilities for their purpose, the smelters and iron manu- facturers will not be slow to take advantage of them. Let us remember how minutely the beet sugar business had to be demonstrated before a single factory was secured, and let it be noted how speedily these sugar factories multiplied in Michigan, when once the success of the en- terprise was assured! We predict that similar results will follow the study of the iron indus- try, as applied to local conditions with refer- ence to the source of the raw material and the easy access to the markets of the world, either by water or rail.

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History of Bay County, Michigan, and representative citizens, Part 26

Author: Gansser, Augustus H., 1872- Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago : Richmond & Arnold Number of Pages: 738

Author: Gansser, Augustus H., 1872-
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond & Arnold
Number of Pages: 738