USA > Michigan > Bay County > History of Bay County, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 60
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"The Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw railway, running through Bay County northwesterly from Bay City, has opened up a way of reaching the high lands in the interior and northern portions of the county. In 1870 there were but nine organized townships in the county, all but one of which were in the southern portion. At the present the northern townships have all been organized, thus show- ing the progress lately made.
"There was still another reason for the slow progress in the claiming of lands by actual settlers. At an early day nearly all the salt was manufactured in pan or kettle-blocks, principally the latter- and the fuel used for boiling the brine was cord-wood, This of course created quite a demand for cord-wood and made it so valu- able that within a reasonable distance of the river not a single fal- low could be seen where the timber was chopped, logged and burned according to the usual method in new counties. The far- mer during a portion of the year was cutting cord-wood, and during the remainder he was hauling it to the salt blocks; and so diligently did he pursue this course that he would not even take time to pick up, seed or cultivate the land from which the wood had been taken. There has, however, been a revolution in the process of manufact- uring salt. Vats and steam pipes take the place of the kettle and pan, and the refuse from the mills supplies the fuel. Since then cord-wood is only needed to supply the city's wants. I have thus
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
endeavored to account for the slow progress made in the agricul- tural growth of this county.
A BAY COUNTY FARM IN 1868.
As an illustration of what was possible to be accomplished at farming in Bay County, the editor of the Bay City Journal visited the farm of Nelson Merritt, in the township of Portsmouth, in 1868, and gave the result of his observations as follows:
"In the case of Mr. Merritt we have a very fair test of what can be done. Mr. Merritt in 1856, then young, healthful and single, came to Bay County and bought 320 acres, a half section, of wild timbered land, situated in Sections Ten and Eleven of Town Thir- teen north, of Range Five, east. He spent the first three years in clearing and fencing 150 acres. At that time clearing could be contracted for at $15 per acre. For most of the land Mr. Merritt paid $5, for the remainder $10 per acre. It lies about two miles east of Saginaw River and of Portsmouth. The soil is a black al- luvial admixed with sand. It is friable and very easily tilled. The first crop raised upon the new land was wheat. The first field sown with wheat was nineteen acres in size, from which 500 marketable bushels of wheat were raised, averaging twenty-six bushels of good wheat to the acre. The quality was fine and the flour made from it excellent. The third year a field of thirty acres was sown with oats and timothy. The yield of oats from this field was 1,300 bushels, or about forty-three bushels to the acre. The yield of timothy grass was from a ton and a half to two tons per acre. This has averaged the price of $20 per ton. The crops of buckwheat were very good. The corn that ripened in ninety days was rich and filled out well. As to potatoes, Mr. Merritt has gathered at the rate of 400 bushels to the acre. They were mealy and dry. This farm is enclosed with good rail fences, that now appear sound and as though they might last fifteen years longer. Good wells of water can be had upon it by digging to the depth of fourteen feet. During the dryest season these wells have given a constant supply. Cattle have been kept each year upon the farm that subsisted and kept in good order upon prairie hay and oat straw in Winter. As a general thing only one hired hand has been necessary to help run the farm. In hay- ing time the force was increased to eight or ten hands. Mr. Merritt informs us as the result of his labors on this piece of land, he has made a living for himself and family; that he has paid expenses, and out of the avails erected upon the place improvements costing about $3,000. To sum, then, the result of this experiment, the original cost of the land was about $2,000. By the improvement of half of it the whole tract is now worth the average price of $60 per acre, or $19,200. Mr. M. has, therefore, laid the foundation of a good living, keeps out of debt, and has a property that is increasing in value. There was nothing in this land better than a great deal about it, and in this vicinity. In these facts, and they can be relied upon as such, there is great encouragement for others to come and do likewise. As fuel is in demand land can be cleared cheaper now than formerly, provided it is near market."
In 1874 the population of the county was 24,832, and in 1880 it had increased to 38,181. Of the 13,349 increase during the six years, 5,844 belonged to the townships.
The state census of 1874 shows that there were in the ground in Bay County in the Spring of that year, 668 acres of wheat against 5133 acres harvested in 1873. The amount of the wheat crop in 1873 was 11,042 bushels, or a little over twenty-one and a-half bushels to the acre. Other farm crops, etc., for 1873, were as follows: Corn, 28,653 bushels; other grains, 23,775 bushels; po- tatoes, 61,422 bushels; hay, 5,816 tons; pork sent to market, 8,192 pounds; and of wool only 793 pounds. The dairy product
is represented by a result of 55,655 pounds of butter sent to market, and the live stock returned foots up, 5,031 animals.
In 1876 the number of acres sown to wheat were 1,410; num- ber of bushels harvested, 18,370. We find a statement, made by good authority, in 1876 as follows: "There are many fine farms along the lines of plank road running east and west from the river, but the settlement of the country, even in the immediate vicinity of the city, is not general. There are therefore valuable lands to be had at low prices, within almost walking distance of as good a market as the state affords. We mention the farm of Nathan Knight, in the township of Hampton, three or four miles from this city, as an example of what may be done by the intelligent agricult- urist. Mr. Knight's crops are luxuriant in growth and yield, and never fail. The fine market farm of E. B. Denison, on the west side of the river, supplies this market with many of its early vege- tables, as well as later crops. Along the line of plank road to Tuscola County, there may be seen as fine farming lands as can be found anywhere, sufficiently rolling for all purposes, without being hilly or cut up by ravines.
Three plank roads run off into the country from this city, giv- ing easy access to market at all seasons. One of these roads strikes off in an easterly direction to Tuscola County, a fine agricultural region, already well developed. The second runs westward, cross- ing the river by a bridge and making off toward the county seat of Midland County, also a good agricultural section. The third fol- lows, in the main, the course of the shore northward toward Kawkaw- lin, and when completed will tap an excellent farming country."
In 1877 there were 57,937 bushels of wheat raised from 2,412 acres, an average of 24.02 to the acre. There was sown in barley, 175 acres; in oats, 1,797 acres, and in corn, 1,480 acres.
In 1879, 94,755 bushels of corn were harvested from 2,648 acres; 96,815 bushels of oats from 3,065 acres; 2,484 bushels of barley from ninety-nine acres; 3,748 bushels of peas from 185 acres; 109,022 bushels of potatoes from 1,292 acres, and 7,483 tons of hay from 6,061 acres.
In 1880, 120,606 bushels of wheat were harvested from 5,624 acres, the average yield being 21.44 bushels to the acre.
The wool product of 1880 amounted to 5,223 pounds.
In 1881, the total number of farms in the county was 977, and the total number of acres improved, 29,279.
Bay County now ranks third among the counties of Michigan as a wheat producing district. The average number of bushels raised to the acre is 21.14. Washtenaw raises 22.26, and Lenawee 21.84.
In an address before the Farmers' Institute, held at Saginaw, W. L, Webber spoke of the agricultural resources of the Saginaw Valley as follows: "It has also been rumored that the Saginaw Valley was not fitted for agricultural purposes. It had obtained its reputation for pine lumber, and as people generally had found re- gions covered with pine to be comparatively worthless for agricul- tural purposes, it was assumed that the whole of Saginaw was filled with pine, and therefore the soil was unfitted for the farmer's use. The experience of the last twenty-five years has also exploded this erroneous notion. I doubt if there can be found in the state of Michigan six thousand square miles of territory in one body with a greater agricultural capacity than the six thousand square miles drained by the Saginaw and its tributaries. More than one half this territory for agricultural purposes is the very cream of Michigan, and there is comparatively but very little but what will make good farming land. Look at the reports of the cereal pro- ducts of Michigan, and you will find that the average production per acre is fully equal to the average in any portion of the state. Wheat, corn, barley and rye are grown here in perfection.
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
For fruits the climate is well adapted to apples, pears, plums and small fruits."
Following is an official report of the
COMPOSITION OF THE SOIL.
Sand and Silica. 82.24
Alumina. .
4.60
Oxide of Iron
2.42
Lime
1.18
Magnesia
.46
Potash .
1.18
Soda. .
.54
Sulphuric.
.20
Phosphoric Acid.
.38
Organic matter containing .17 Nitrogen 5.57
Water and loss.
.25
Total Ash-food.
3,94
Capacity for water
47.80
THE SAGINAW MARSHES.
The following review of the early condition of the Saginaw marshes, and the subsequent efforts to reclaim by Judge Albert Miller, is not only interesting as reminiscence, but valuable for the information which it contains. Judge Miller says:
"I can convey as correct an impression of the changes that have taken place in the condition of the Saginaw marshes during the last half century, and the efforts that have been made to utilize them, by relating facts and incidents which have come within my knowledge, as by any other method. My personal knowledge of the Saginaw country commenced in the Fall of 1831. Then the Saginaw River rolled between well defined banks, and the creeks and bayous were confined within much narrower limits than at the present time; and from observation and information derived from -Indians, and others who had previously known the country, I am satisfied that there had been a much lower stage of water in the Saginaw River and Bay during the half century next preceding the time above referred to than there has been since that time. At that date there stood on the bank of the river, below Carrollton, some very large apple trees that must have had fifty or sixty years' growth, that were destroyed by water more than forty years ago. In the first grove of timber on the prairie which the railroad passes north of East Saginaw, there stood a green, pine tree two feet in diameter, and much of the timber then growing in that grove was beech, maple, and white oak, all of which has long since disappeared. The grove of timber still further north, which is within the embankment I shall hereafter mention, was called Pine Island, on account of the predominance of pine timber. In the early years of my residence at Saginaw the Indians raised corn on Crow Island, and on a small island near the junction of the Shia- wassee and Tittabawassee Rivers, and on other lands known to the present inhabitants as only low and worthless. In 1833, on the 29th day of March, Judge Jewett, late of Saginaw, and I, com- menced to plow on Green Point, and with one plow we broke up thirty acres of prairie land, all of which we planted with corn that season. We had no reason to complain of the growth of our crop, but it being the only field in the country, it hardly sufficed to feed the millions of black birds that preyed upon it; sometimes darken- ing the sky in their flight to and from the field. After the corn was in the milk, we spent our time in the field with horns, belis and guns in the vain endeavor to protect our crop. In the Fall we gathered of the butts of the ears sufficient to fatten forty-seven hundred weight of pork.
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The land above referred to was cultivated up to and including the year 1835, since which time a large portion of it has been unfit for cultivation on account of high water. It is impossible for me, by
any description I can give, to convey to the minds of my readers an idea of the beautiful appearance that our prairies presented in the Summer of 1835. The whole expanse was covered with blue joint grass about four feet high, near the banks of the river, being decked with pea blossom, morning glory, and other beautiful flowers, presenting to the eyes of those passing up and down the river, or riding on horseback over the firm prairie ground, an enchanting view, which so captivated those from the East who visited our valley that Summer, that some of them made large purchases of the land which so delighted them.
It was in the month of June of that year that Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh made his first visit to Saginaw, and his name, so fre- quently found on the tract books of the valley, will testify to the attractions it had for him. In the Summer of 1835, Albert H. Dorr, a member of the then wealthy firm of Tucker & Dorr, of New York City, came West with a view of investing in the government lands. On his arrival at Detroit, after looking at the map of Michigan, he determined to locate lands on the Saginaw River. The tract books at the land office showed him several vacant fractions of land on the immediate banks of the river which he purchased and then came to view his purchases, which he found not valuable, principally lying at the mouth of creeks and bayous. One tract, a fractional section of 200 acres at the mouth of the river, is now wholly submerged, not a foot of land to be seen, owing to the change that has taken place since the govern- ment survey. But nothing daunted, Mr. Dorr purchased other tracts, among which was the land lately improved by Thomas H. McGraw, through diking and pumping, and a tract of 800 acres in the vicinity of Crow Island, which latter tract he determined to make immediate use of for a stock farm. At that time the price of cut- ting and putting up prairie hay was $1.50 per ton. Mr. Dorr left $150 with parties at Saginaw to pay for putting up hay, and went directly to Ohio to purchase a stock of cattle and horses. Parties at Saginaw, with whom Mr. Dorr came in contact, had little faith in his being able to carry out his plans for stocking his farm, and neglected to cause the hay to be put up. When he arrived in the month of November with a stock of 150 head of cattle and fifty horses, he found no provisions made for their Winter's food, and being a stranger in the country with so large an "elephant" on his hands, he became somewhat disheartened, greatly desiring to get the whole thing off his hands so he could return to New York. Cold weather had set in early that season, killing the wild grass, leaving very little for stock to subsist upon. After a day or two spent at Saginaw City in the vain endeavor to make some disposi- tion of his stock, Mr. Dorr came to my house at Green Point, on Thanksgiving day, wishing me to take a lease of his farm and stock for ten years. This I consented to do, on conditions proposed by myself, one of which was that I should receive no stock on the lease till after the first of the succeeding May. On Mr. Dorr's de- parture for New York, the next day, he gave me $300 to provide food for the stock during the Winter, with which I purchased all the hay and grain that was then for sale in the Saginaw Valley, at that time to keep them for the time being, and made inquiry of the Indians about the location of the beds of rushes which I had heard existed in large quantities in the vicinity. I met Indian George, whose death in Tuscola County was chronicled in some of the state papers, who volunteered to pilot me to a point where I should find ample provisions for wintering my stock. He took me to the other side of the Quanicassee River, ten or twelve miles east of Bay City, where I found a large space covered with green rushes, and after satisfying myself that there was no lack of quan- tity, I returned and made preparations to transfer my cattle and horses to the rush beds as soon as the ice on the creeks and bayous
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
213
would permit their crossing it. Early in December the ice had be- come so strong that I returned to start with my drove of cattle and horses, and the first day I drove them to a point known to all old settlers as the Lone Tree, which is a little south of where the McGraw Mill in South Bay City is located, where I found some hay stacks that had been put up by Joseph and Medor Trombley, one of which I caused to be fed to the cattle and horses, for which I afterward paid the owners, who were then living on the tract of land where.Portsmouth was afterward located.
The second night we reached the Bay, where we fed a couple of loads of hay that were drawn from Saginaw on the ice for that pur- pose, and the third night we reached the rush beds, where the stock feasted on green rushes. I had a small log house built for the con- venience of the men whom I hired to take care of the stock. Their duties were to see them all every day so they should not get wild, and count them so they should not go astray. A part of the time I had George Whitfield there. He was an Indian who had been edu- cated in one of the Eastern states. I usually kept two men at the camp, and visited them about once a week myself, driving on the ice by the way of Saginaw River and Bay, and the Quanicassee River to the point where the camp was located. Whenever I went I gave the cattle salt, distributing it in places that had been cut for the purpose on trunks of fallen trees, and when that was done would place myself in a position where I should not be run over by the cattle and would then call to them, when they would come from every direction, making a noise as they passed over their well- trodden snow paths like a locomotive engine rushing along with a train of cars. The cattle seemed delighted by the presence of man, and when their herders were with them manifested pleas- ure on being petted or handled by them. That was an unu- sually severe Winter, the snow falling deep; but after the cattle had been a month on the rushes they looked as if they had been stall- fed, except that they were as clean as deer, when stall-fed cattle could not be. The horses did very well on the rushes at first, and got fat; but afterward so much green food seemed to disagree with them, and many of them died before Spring. In January, after the ice got strong on the Saginaw River, I caused my house, which stood on the opposite side of the river from Green Point, to be placed on four strong ox sleds, one under each corner, and, with six yoke of oxen, hauled it on the ice to the stock farm I had leased from Dorr, and located at the south end of the island of timber. No furniture was taken from the house before removing it, and no preparation was made inside except to take the dishes from the pan- try shelves and place them in baskets. Dinner for the men employed in removing the house was cooked on the stove in the house while we were passing along over the ice, and night coming on before we had our job completed, we fed our teams at some hay stacks on shore and got our supper and went to bed in the house on the ice. In the morning we placed the house on the spot intended for it with- out any accident, except in passing under a tree, a projecting limb knocked a few bricks from the top of the chimney. After placing my house in position, I built one near it of logs, to accommodate a force of men whom I employed to get out timber for fencing, pre- paratory to extensive farming operations for the next season. I had cut and hauled during that Winter sufficient rail timber to fence 200 acres of land, the principal part of which I intended to plough and cultivate the next season
All the land between Bay City and Saginaw, except the creeks and bayous, could have been cultivated. Benoit Trombley raised a fine crop of corn and potatoes that year between the grove of tim- ber last referred to and the river, on the present site of the Oneida Salt and Lumber Company's improvements. A heavy body of snow fell during the Winter of 1835-6, but it commenced to thaw early,
so that in April I broke up some of the prairie preparatory to crop- ping, and gathered the stock with a view of having it inventoried on the lease. But as the warm weather continued, the water rose rapidly, floating away my fencing timber; and on the first of May, when my lease should have commenced, there was not an acre of land on the whole tract that was above water. I had previously driven the cattle and horses to the highland to provide for them- selves. The water remained high during most of the Summer of 1836, and I wrote to Mr. Dorr, describing the situation and request- ing to have the lease canceled, which he consented to, and author- ized the stock to be delivered to other parties, to be sold for his benefit. I abandoned the place, and no attempt has since been made to cultivate it. The water rose to a higher stage in 1837 than it attained in 1836, and in 1838 it was higher than I have ever seen it before or since. The low lands were flooded during the whole Summer, destroying large tracts of timber, especially a variety of valuable ash timber that skirted the prairies. From 1838 the water gradually receded, till 1850 it was quite low again. In the Spring of 1852 it rose to almost the height it attained in 1838, but did not remain high so long. Before coming West I had heard of a regular periodical rise and fall of the waters in the great lakes. My experi- ence has shown me that there is a great difference in the height of water at different periods, but the periods of the rise and fall are not at all regular.
Before mentioning the improvements made by Mr. Daglish and myself, I will give a brief sketch of the work done by Thomas H. McGraw. He was really the pioneer in improving the Saginaw marshes, by pumping the water from them, having been relieved of the expense of diking by reason of the main track of the F. & P. M. R. R., and a branch of the same running to McGraw & Co.'s mill. This made an embankment on two sides of a triangle, which incloses a tract of about 350 acres of marsh land, which is bounded on the third side by high land and mill improvements. In 1877 an attempt was made to pump the water from the inside ditch of the branch railroad, but the work was abandoned on account of a leakage in the bank. It was ascertained that leakage occurred at a point where edgings had been put into the embankment. Mr. McGraw caused a trench to be cut across the edgings and filled with puddle clay, thus making the embankment secure, when he again commenced pump- ing in the latter part of July, 1878. He used a screw pump two feet in diameter and thirty feet long, which was worked with power from the engine in the planing mill, with which the water was drawn from the surface of the ground, 250 acres of which was covered about four inches deep, and settled in the ditch five or six feet below the surface of the river, in two weeks time. Afterward the ditch filled with water, and was emptied by three days' pumping. It is now thought that under any contingency the water can be drawn down by three days' pumping sufficiently low to leave the drain tile, that Mr. McGraw intends to put in, six inches above its surface. A ditch has been dug through the lowest part of the prairie, nine and one half feet broad at the surface, four feet deep, and 200 rods in length; also 180 rods of smaller ditches. In making the ditches, the humus or vegetable matter was thrown to one side, and the marl or lower strata on the other. The last-named substance, after the ground was plowed, was hauled onto the land and dumped in cart loads, to be spread in the Spring for a fertilizer. Mr. McGraw plowed quite a large tract of this prairie land last Fall to be ready for a Spring crop. This improvement is prosecuted under the superintendence of Mr. McGraw's father-in-law, Mr. Uberhurst, who is a practical farmer and a graduate from the Agricultural College of Prussia. He formerly had charge of the stock-feeding department of the Prussian government farm, where six hundred cows were fed for the sole purpose of ascertaining by experiment what food for them
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HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY.
could be grown and used to the greatest profit. Mr. McGraw has capital to carry out any plan of improvement he desires to make, and with such practical and scientific knowledge as is possessed by Mr. Uberhurst, to direct the outlay of capital, we may expect to see the model farm of the state on the Saginaw marshes, and to hear of results from practical operations that will greatly encourage those who intend improving marsh lands.
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