USA > Michigan > Bay County > History of Bay County, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 18
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BAY CITY IN FALL OF 1838,
MICH. ENC. CO. DETROIT. DWELLING.
DWELLING.
S S. CAMPBELL'S HOTEL.
BUILDING BUILT FOR WILD CAT BANK.
WAREHOUSE.
LOG HOUSE.
BARN. LEON TROMBLEY'S HOUSE. SMOKE HOUSE.
ICE HOUSE.
buildings represented did not exist in the year namel. Even the Globe Hotel had not then taken shape, and Judge Campbell was a resi- dent of Bridgeport. A correct picture of Lower Saginaw, at March 1, 1838, would represent a clearing extending from the present line of Third Street, south to a point just beyond Center Street, and from the river east to about the present line of Saginaw Street. There were two or three log houses and the block house built by the Sag- inaw Bay Company, near the present corner of Fourth and Water Streets, for a boarding-house. The Globe Hotel building was in process of construction, and Cromwell Barney was at work upon it. A mile or so to the south were the big house of the Trombleys, and a deserted saw mill. Such was the birth and birth-place of Bay City. The future has few secrets more securely locked up than those which pertained to the destinies of this germ of enterprise.
SYDNEY S. CAMPBELL,
or Judge Campbell, as he is generally called, was unquestionably the first to locate in Lower Saginaw and effect a permanent settle- ment, after the town was projected. He was born at Paris, Oneida
and the following day killed a large buck on the opposite side of the river, the last one that he saw for five years. That month, March, 1838, is described by Mr. Campbell as being as warm as is usual for the month of June. In addition to the lot on which the Globe Hotel was built, and still stands, he purchased several other lots which he was wise enough to keep. He had married, March, 1830, Miss Catharine J. McCarty, of Schenectady, N. Y. They have had three children, two of whom are still living. Edward M. Campbell, who died in 1879, was the first boy born in Lower Sag- inaw, or in what is now Bay County. He was the first supervisor of Hampton Township, and held the office for several years. He was probate judge of the county for sixteen years after its organi- zation. In 1873 he built a brick business block just north of the Globe Hotel, on Water Street, which he rents. He and his wife now live on Woodside Avenue, and twice every day he visits the Globe Hotel, which he has owned for forty-five years, though it has been considerably eularged and improved since it was first built. The incidents of Judge Campbell's early connection with the place appear at different places in this work. For forty-five years he has
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
been a witness of the changes which, in history, link the bus- tling metropolis of the present with the desolate opening. in the wilderness nearly half a century ago.
Upon arriving here the 1st of March, Mr. Campbell's family occupied the block house for a short time until the "Globe" was finished, when they took possession and opened the first tavern in Lower Saginaw. In those days supplies were not ordered through telephone, nor yet by stepping out to some market place a block away, and often Mr. Campbell would paddle a canoe sixteen miles to Saginaw for a pound of tea. In 1862 the old hotel building was enlarged to its present size, and endowed with the name "Globe Hotel."
A year or two after settling here, Mr. Campbell borrowed the government oxen, and plowed a piece of land near where Folsom & Arnold's saw mill now stands, which he sowed with buckwheat. When the time came to gather it he would take his canoe, his wife accompanying him, and go down to the field. On the way he would shoot ducks for their dinner. Spreading a sail cloth upon the ground, Mrs. Campbell would bring the bundles of buckwheat to- gether, and he threshed it out on the sail cloth. After winnowing it with a shovel it was put in bags and taken in his canoe to the hotel, where it was emptied into a bed-room up-stairs. The follow- ing Winter there was a scarcity of flour, and in February the supply in Lower Saginaw became exhausted. None could be had at Saginaw or Flint, but people in those days did not starve. In this instance Mr. Campbell's harvest of buckwheat was opportune. Fred Derr, who lived in the "Wild Cat" building opposite the "Globe," had a big coffee mill, and it didn't take the settlers long to study out a way to get flour. Each one as he needed would visit the buckwheat pile, and taking what he needed, grind it in Mr. Derr's coffee mill. In this way, the only flour used in the settlement for three weeks was made, and it is not recorded that the avoirdupois of the place dim- inished, or that the bloom of health was dulled.
"Yankee" Brown, as he was called, kept boarders in the block house, and Cromwell Barney was living in the old log house, pre- viously occupied by Leon Trombley. Fred Derr was working with Cromwell Barney, while the Globe Hotel was being built. He afterwards married Miss Clark, who taught school a short time near where William Peter's mill now stands. They were the first white people in Lower Saginaw to unite for better or worse, but they went to Saginaw City to get the solemn sentence pronounced. She died in about a year after they were married, but he is still living East. Mrs. Derr was the second person buried in the burial place selected for that time, as described elsewhere.
The first white child born in the county was Elizabeth, daughter of Cromwell Barney, and the late wife of A. G. Sinclair, now of Bay City. She was born in the log house in May, 1838.
During 1838, the bank building was built nearly opposite the Globe Hotel, on what is now the corner of Water and Fifth Streets. The reasons why this building was never used for a bank have al- ready been given. The warehouse also was built on the river. During the Summer Mr. Campbell borrowed the government oxen of Leon Trombley and plowed a piece of ground, but the opera- tions of the place were not extensive, and the hotel business did not exceed the facilities.
With 1838 the operations of the Saginaw Bay Company ceased. Its affairs went into chancery, and Lower Saginaw was 'under a shadow more dismal than that of the surrounding wilder- ness, for two or three years.
There is a story told in connection with the wreck of the Sag- inaw Bay Company that illustrates the ups and downs of life. At the time of the crash, Theodore Walker was a tailor in the city of Brooklyn, and had a claim against one of the bankrupt stockhold-
ers of the company. Having nothing else left at his disposal, he turned over to Mr. Walker a strip of land in Lower Saginaw. It was not supposed to be of any value, either in reality or expect- ancy, but Mr. Walker accepted it because nothing better was to be had. He kept it, and some years later came to Lower Saginaw, and died here, but not until after his worthless land had become very valuable. Mr. Walker used to tell this circumstance during his residence here.
Judge Campbell kept the Globe Hotel for three or four years, and then moved into a house still standing on Water Street, just below Third Street, that James Burly had built, but lightning dashed into the clearing one day and gave an exhibition on that building, leaving it in tatters. Judge Campbell fixed it up and oc- cupied it is a residence. The Globe then had several proprietors. Col. Garrett kept it for a while, then Capt. Benjamin Pierce, who came here on the schooner "Maine," and afterwards a man named Tait.
About 1841 the forces that were to enter into the future de- velopment of the place were being gathered together. It was about this time that the scrip for most of the land owned by the Saginaw Bay Company came into the possession of James Fraser, Dr. D. H. Fitzhugh, James G. Birney and Theodore Walker. In 1840 Dr. Fitzhughi had purchased several parcels of land bordering on the river, opposite Lower Saginaw and Portsmouth. So that prac- tically the
PROPRIETORS OF LOWER SAGINAW
were James Fraser, James G. Birney and Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, of whom we make the following biographical sketches.
THE PROJECTOR OF BAY CITY.
James Fraser's business career is inseparably intertwined with all the important features of a history of Lower Saginaw and Bay City. The former he founded, and developing into the latter has become the monument of his sagacity and unfaltering courage. We shall attempt in this connection only an outline of his life, as the history of his business relations, and the results of his efforts, neces- sarily appear in other places in this work.
Mr. Fraser was born at Inverness, Scotland, February 5, 1803. His father in early life was a soldier in a British regiment, and in 1796, in the war with the French, lost a leg at the Island of St. Luce, and was afterwards a pensioner of the government. His mother spent the last year of her life in the family of her son James. and with daughters at Lower Saginaw, Her death occurred in 1850.
When quite young Mr. Fraser engaged in business for himself, and accumulated several thousand dollars, which he brought with him to America. He had no advantages of early education or fortune, beyond what his own unaided energy secured. In the after years of his wealth he never forgot his origin or desired others to forget it. The contrasts of the different circumstances of his life he neither boasted of nor sought to conceal, though he often referred to the scenes of his youth, when he waded bare-legged through the snow to carry a message for a ha'penny, or his taking daily a brick of turf under his arm as a contribution to the fire of the village school. He emigrated to America in the year 1829, bringing with him the few thousands of dollars he had accumulated. His first business experience was temporarily disastrous, though, perhaps, ultimately profitable. In company with two or three of his fellow countrymen an attempt was made to build a saw mill near Rochester, in Oak- land County. They spent the Winter in making preparations, pay- ing exorbitant prices for material and supplies, and in the Spring their funds had run so low that the enterprise was abandoned. Mr. Fraser found his capital reduced to less than $100, and with this
James Fraser
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
remnant he went to Detroit. There he established a small grocery and made money rapidly. In 1832 he married Miss Elizabeth Busby, a young English lady of more than ordinary personal at- tractions, who, with her parents, had emigrated from London the year previous. In the Autumn of 1833 he determined to move to Saginaw, and occupy a tract of land he had previously purchased on the Tittabawassee River. All that time there was only an Indian trail between Flint and Saginaw; the usual mode of travel being on horseback. The distance was thirty-eight miles, and Mrs. Fraser having a young child must have some easier vehicle than the saddle. Mr. Fraser's resources were equal to the emergency, and he had a rude ox sled made with a comfortable seat upon which Mrs. Fra- ser rode, while her father and mother accompanied Mr. Fraser on horseback to their new home.
Soon after getting his family settled, he returned to Detroit to purchase some cattle for his farm, and while driving in on foot, be- tween Flint and Saginaw, his cattle got wild and would not keep the trail. He chased them until he got tired, when he took off his coat and after carrying it a while, and getting near the trail once more, as he supposed, he hung it on a tree in order to head off the cattle. In doing so, he lost the location where he left his coat and he could never find it. Mr. Fraser used to say in after years, when he was worth nearly a million, that "this was the greatest loss he ever had in his life, as his pocket contained $500; all the money he had in the world was in that coat pocket." There was great hunting for that coat, but it was never found. Undoubtedly the wolves pulled it down and destroyed it.
He cleared some land and planted an orchard that was after- wards noted as being the most flourishing in this part of the state. With true Scotch feeling, he was always averse to parting from that farm, and held it while he lived. In the division of his estate it went to Mrs. Paine, of Saginaw, in whose possession it still remains. Mr. Fraser soon found a more profitable occupation than farming, in locating and dealing in government lands. During the early part of 1836, he removed his family to Saginaw City, and never re- turned to his farm.
From this time on, his business operations outreach the limits of biography and are traceable through the general history of prog- ress and development in the Saginaw Valley. During 1835 and 1836 land in favorable locations reached almost fabulous prices, and Mr. Fraser's sagacity enabled him to reap a golden harvest. In 1836 he was a leading spirit in the organization of the Saginaw Bay Company, which purchased the present site of Bay City. The financial crash of 1837 wrecked this company and most of the stockholders, Mr. Fraser being about the only one who survived. His business achievements from 1835 to 1838, including his success- ful issue from the great panic of 1837, must be regarded as among the most remarkable on record. He bought when lands were cheap, and was shrewd enough to sell when the advance would realize him a handsome profit. It was one of his rules to always keep on hand an amount of ready money, and by doing this he was not only prepared for a panic, but was ready to improve the best opportunities for making a good bargain. After the Saginaw Bay Company went down he associated with him James G. Birney and Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, and they purchased considerable of the scrip, and became the proprietors of Lower Saginaw. In 1845 he built a water mill at Kawkawlin, and began the manufacture of lumber. During the next three years he was interested in the building and operation of two steam saw mills on the Saginaw River, and later in a steam mill on the Kawkawlin River. He succeeded Judge Riggs as Indian agent, and that was the only office with any emolument that he was ever induced to take. In 1848 Mrs. Fraser died, leaving a family of three sons and three daughters. October 28, 1850, he married
Miss Susan Moulton, of Westport, Conn., a woman of beautiful character, whose spirit of Christian benevolence has made her life one of great usefulness. The union was one of mutual happiness and blessing. It was the law and custom of Connecticut in those days to "cry out the bans" in church, and to escape this publicity, they were married in New York City. The fruit of this marriage was one daughter. In 1857 they removed to Lower Saginaw, and here in his commodious mansion was dispensed a most liberal hos- pitality. Here his great energies were directed, not alone to his private enterprises, but to public improvement and the general de- velopment of the county. About the last enterprise of his life was the erection of the large brick block that now bears his name, "The Fraser House," at the corner of Center and Water Streets, but which he did not live to see completed and occupied. The church edifice on Washington Street, in which the Baptist Society first worshipped, was almost entirely a gift from him.
In 1864 he began to feel that he would like a more quiet life, and with his family went to Brooklyn for a few months and thence to Westport, Conn., where he continued to reside until his death, although much of his time was spent in Bay City. His last sickness commenced with an ordinary cold, which developed into typhoid pneumonia, and resulted in his death January 28, 1866. The an- nouncement of his death produced a profound impression in Bay City, and the event received appropriate public recognition by the citizens of this place. His remains were buried at Westport. Of the children, only four are living :- Mrs. William McEwan and Mrs. E. B. Denison, of Bay City; Mrs. A. B. Paine, of Saginaw, and Mrs. George T. Blackstock, of Toronto, Canada. Mrs. Fraser is now the wife of Hon. William McMaster, a wealthy banker of Toronto and a member of the Dominion Parliament.
The life and character of Mr. Fraser were truly remarkable in energy, persistency and endurance, although in every respect he was a man of marked traits. It was, however, in his working faculties that he stood most conspicuously before his fellow men. It is safe to say that there are few men living capable of enduring even for a short time what he passed through as the daily routine of life. At a time when the saddle and canoe were almost the only means of communication, his business required his presence in almost every part of the valley, and often at the headquarters of the state in Detroit. He was then literally ubiquitous. He seemed entirely insensible to fatigue, heat or cold, or anything which stood between him and the object at which he aimed. He more than once rode straight through from Saginaw City to Detroit by the light of a single sun,-a distance of about ninety-five miles,-on some occasions never changing his horse. But this was nothing; arriving at home at nightfall, after toils which most men would have considered a warrant for a long rest, and finding a letter or a message which re- quired his presence elsewhere, with scarce a pause, he would spring again into the saddle, and no matter how dark, or wet or cold, he would plunge into the almost pathless forest with a seeming reck- lessness, but with an instinctive sagacity and force of will and power of endurance that always brought him through, and gener- ally, "on time." With the land office at Detroit for the goal, a choice section of land for the prize, it is believed that there was never a man who could beat James Fraser in the race. Often in the dead of night, the solitary settler at the Cass Crossing would hear a horse thundering at full speed across the bridge, and would say the next morning that James Fraser had gone in or out, as the case might be. An acquaintance, speaking of Mr. Fraser, says :- "The first glimpse I ever had of him was in the trail between Flint and Cass in 1836. The mud was knee deep, and water was above the mud, but he passed through at speed with merely a shout. He was without a hat, and covered with mud, his head being bound with
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
a handkerchief. On meeting him afterwards I learned that he had been all night in the woods, having lost his way, and afterwards his hat, but he was going to Detroit to enter some land at Lower Sag- inaw, and his errand brooked no delay."
In the Spring of 1850, his eldest son was sick at Detroit. Growing suddenly worse, his father's presence was desired as quickly as possible, and a messenger was despatched to inform him. Mr. Fraser was in Saginaw when the intelligence reached him. In- stantly ordering his famous horse "Fair Play," he was soon in the saddle and away. It was in the month of March, and the roads of those days were worse even than usual, if such a thing were possible. But a better pair never started upon a race for life, even under the graphic colorings of fiction, than James Fraser and his pet, "Fair Play;" and in eight hours and forty-five minutes from the time of starting, the distance of ninety-five miles had been traversed and Mr. Fraser was at the bedside of his dying son, having changed horses two or three times on the way.
Instances similar to the foregoing, of the feats performed by this man, are numerous enough to fill a volume. The horse, "Fair Play," was an animal of great beauty and endurance, and known throughout all this region. But horse and rider long since halted at the end of life's journey. The wilderness through which they plunged by day and night has disappeared; the trails they followed have become highways of mighty industries, and the stations at which they stopped are populous centers of activity and thrift.
In his intercourse with the world Mr. Fraser was one of the most genial and pleasant of men. The fervor and enthusiasm of his social qualities are well remembered traits of his character. In his home he was truly hospitable, his house being for a long time headquarters for strangers who came to the valley.
It has been truly said of Mr. Fraser that as a business man he was a class by himself. For many years his head was his ledger and his hat was his safe, yet, with a memory clear and tenacious, even to the smallest details, he transacted his affairs with the utmost exactness. When his affairs extended entirely beyond his capacious mental grasp, he was forced to employ the usual agencies for doing business, but even then he was inclined to continue his primitive methods to a certain extent; methods that had brought him a fortune of nearly or quite a million dollars.
Mr. Fraser was never a member of any church, but during the last years of his life gave his attention to religious matters and ob- servances. He became an industrious student of the Bible and conducted family worship, and at the last met death calmly and peacefully.
Such is an imperfect outline of the character and career of the man whose mighty activity flashes across all the changing scenes through which Bay City has passed. One who knew him well says truly that the biographer who could have caught and combined the story of James Fraser's life as it frequently fell from his own lips in his own racy and graphic language during moments of free social intercourse, might have given the world a most amusing and in- structive book. To the student of human nature it would have pre- sented some new and interesting combinations of the threads and colors which enter into the warp and woof of human life.
THE FITZHUGHS.
DR. DANIEL H. FITZHUGH, one of the proprietors of Lower Saginaw, was born in Washington County, Md., April 20, 1794. He studied medicine, but becoming interested in real estate ventures, he never engaged in the practice of that profession. In 1816 his parents removed to Livingston County, N. Y., where the family home has since been. As early as 1834, Dr. Fitzhugh came into the Saginaw Valley for the purpose of investing in land, and his first purchases were in the vicinity of Saginaw City. After the
treaty of 1837 he purchased several parcels of land bordering on the river, where West Bay City now stands, and still later became one of the proprietors of Lower Saginaw, as elsewhere stated. He was never a permanent resident here, but the association of his name with this region, extending throughout its history, is con- tinued by his sons. Dr. Fitzhugh died in the Spring of 1881, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years.
CHARLES C. FITZHUGH was born in Livingston County, N. Y., in 1821. In 1841 he came to Saginaw in connection with the land interests of his father. The following year he returned home and married a Miss Jones, of Mount Morris. They came to Saginaw, where they remained three years, and then settled on a farm at the forks of the Tittabawassee River. He remained there until about 1855, when he came to Lower Saginaw to take care of the real estate interests of his father, and has resided here since that time. Mr. Fitzhugh is not a demonstrative man, but has always been re- garded as one of the reliable men of the county. He has exten- sive real estate interests both in the city and country. He has for many years been trustee of the old Saginaw Bay Company.
DANIEL H. FITZHUGH, JR., is also a native of Livingston County, N. Y. He first came to Lower Saginaw in 1847 and built a house on the corner of Third and Water Streets. It was the seventh dwelling house in what was at that time the corporate limits of the town, and was a very pretentious dwelling for that time. It was afterwards occupied by his brother, William D. Fitz- hugh, until destroyed by fire. He remained about three years and returned East, and was engaged in the brokerage business in New York for some years. In 1870 he again came to Bay City for a permanent residence, and is engaged in attending to real estate in- terests. Mr. Fitzhugh is quite a noted sportsman, and was the first to discover the habits, and caused to be properly classified, the fish known as grayling, which is now a famous fish, and quite abundant in the waters of the northern portion of this peninsula.
WILLIAM D. FITZHUGH came to Lower Saginaw in 1850, and in 1851 built a dwelling house at the corner of Tenth and Washing- ton Streets, at that time in the midst of the forest. Before build- ing this house he lived in the one built by Daniel Fitzhugh, Jr., until it was destroyed by fire. He remained here until 1856, wben he returned East to reside permanently. During his stay here he was very active in promoting public interests. He and his wife were the founders of Trinity Church, and various other enterprises were liberally encouraged by him. In 1873 he donated to the city a tract of twenty acres of ground, for a public park, and which has been improved for that purpose. Mr. Fitzhugh was one of the early salt manufacturers of the valley, as appears in the history of that industry.
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