USA > Michigan > Genesee County > History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 56
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Among other industries which were started before the eighties under the stimulating influences were the Flint chemical works, the Genesee iron works, the Flint paper mills, Castree & Odell's agricultural implement shop, Patterson's carriage factory, Alexander's carding-mills, and Stone's woolen- mills. The city of Flint Gas-Light Company, organized in 1870 by James B. Walker, Josiah W. Begole, William M. Fenton and Jesse B. Atwood, began supplying gas to the city in 1871. In the first year there were ninety consumers, using about two million nine hundred thousand cubic feet of illuminating gas. By 1880 the company had laid seven miles of pipe and supplied gas to two hundred and sixty consumers.
The educational interests of the people were not lost sight of in this rapid advance in the pursuit of things material. Schools, which had been early established, kept pace with the increased school population. A union school building had been completed in 1846 and, though in 1855 the union system was threatened with abandonment, the academic course continued to be taught and to gain in public favor. In 1869 rate-bills were abolished and a free public school became a reality. In 1875 the present high-school build- ing was completed and opened, under the charge of Professor Crissey. A
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class of eight graduated from the high school at the close of the first school year, 1875-76; within three years this number was raised to twenty-one. Besides the high school, there was a school house in each of the four city wards at this time, with a total enrollment including the high school of one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven pupils. In addition, the city con- tained the state institution for educating the deaf, dumb and the blind, estab- lished properly in 1857 under the principalship of B. M. Fay. In 1879 it had an attendance of two hundred and fifty pupils.
The spirit fostered by the successful pursuit of worldly goods might be supposed to have been no light strain upon the habits of the people respecting the development of character and the observance of religious wor- ship. Yet Flint in this period witnessed a wholesome progress along all lines of moral and spiritual endeavor.
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CHAPTER XIV.
LUMBERING AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES.
The pioneer beginnings of the lumber industry in Genesee county have been traced in connection with preceding chapters; a word might be added as to the "modus operandi" of lumbering in the early days.
In the earlier period of the lumbering activity, the individual owner- ship of the timber lands along the river operated to make the logging busi- ness simpler in method than afterwards prevailed. The custom in the early times was to establish a camp at some place on the lands to be cut over ; this consisted of a building of logs or slabs temporarily made, with provis- ion for cooking and bunking the men. The ideal camp was a long house, with bunks along the sides, a long table in the middle and a kitchen in one end. Ample provision was made for fires to warm it in winter, the time of activity.
The men, who were called "lumber jacks," were generally young men, whose fathers were the farmers in the vicinity; and even the fathers joined in during the winter when the period of farming did not demand their at- tention or when they could give a portion of their time from the clearing of their own land.
The routine of the camp was, "early rising" on the part of the team- sters and the cook and his assistant, the preparation of the breakfast and the feeding of the teams. The breakfast, which was eaten by candle-light, was of pancakes, black strap, pork, or fresh meat when obtainable, beans, pota- toes, all seasoned by the appetite of young and hearty men accustomed to work. The morning light found these men out in the woods; two choppers working together with two sawmen made up a gang. At this period the trees were felled by the choppers, and then cut into logs of the proper length by the sawmen. The swampers cut out the roads and hauled the logs cut by the gang out to the skidway, where the skidders aided the teamsters to roll the logs down onto the skids. Oxen were used exclusively in the haul- ing of the logs from the woods to the skidways. The skidways were numer- ous and the logs were rolled on, or "skidded," with reference to convenience of loading, to haul to the banking grounds.
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There was a wholesome rivalry between various gangs, each trying to show results in larger production of logs; the pay of the men depended upon the amount of work accomplished and varied from twenty-two to thirty dollars per month, with board. In later times the gang was decreased in number to three men, one chopper and two sawmen; this resulted from the custom of sawing the tree down, instead of chopping it down. The chopper, or axeman, cut two cuts opposite each other in the sides of the tree, and the sawmen regulated their work by these axe cuts. The tree when felled was measured by the axeman who made the cuts to show where it should be sawed into logs, the length running from twelve to eighteen feet; the nature of the tree as to straightness determined the length; most of the logs, if the tree allowed it, were sixteen feet long, or twice the length of the axeman's pole, which was eight feet long. The judgment of the axeman as to which way the tree should fall, and how when felled, it should be cut into logs, was of great value; an unskilled man could cause considerable loss by an error of judgment in either case.
The hauling of the logs from the skidway to the banking grounds was done on wide sleds, as wide as eight feet, which contained, when skillfully loaded, a large number of logs. At the banking ground these were made into solid piles, or banks, each containing a large number of logs and all being the property of some firm or company. These logs were so piled as to enable them to be dropped into the river by the least possible work and as near the same time as possible. When the river was at running stage in the spring, these banking grounds were the scenes of great activity. The logs were gotten into the river in a short time, and when there, the aggregate of the logs comprised a "run." The size of the river precluded its long-con- tinued occupancy for a run, so each owner took every care to get his run into the river at the proper time with great expedition, and then to run it down as fast as possible, so as not to interfere with others likewise engaged. As the river was a highway, the use of it was open to everyone, but the etiquette of the lumberman led him to do all that could be done to avoid two runs getting together and mingling the logs of different owners. The run once started, the river men-and all the lumber jacks were river men of more or less skill-kept it going until the logs had been delivered to the mill. This was the method of the early days of the lumbering industry in Genesee county along the river. It was confined to the river entirely, but the streams that fell into the river were also of utility in running logs. It is to be observed, however, that the Thread creek was never used as a run-
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way for logs, as the pines that attracted the lumbermen did not thrive in the basin of that stream; while along the banks of the Flint river, in the spring, twenty million or more feet of logs might be found.
The lumbering business brought into the vernacular of the people var- ious terms that would be unknown to the people of today. The "swampers," who made the roads in the woods for the logs as felled and cut by the gang; the "skidders," who piled the logs on the skidway; the "jam crackers," who broke out the logs that held back the jam, and so released the same, and the "sackers," who searched out those logs that had gone astray into bayous, or low water, and so got grounded. The latter, often four to a log, got into the water and eased the log out into deep water, or "sacked" it out.
The development of the business to much greater importance resulted in another change, which was the organization of the boom company. When the experience of the men who managed the logging operations had shown the inconvenience and extra work involved in the skidding of the logs, the removal to the banking ground, and the running of each man's or firm's logs separately, with the danger of one run striking another and so mingling the logs of the two owners, it was determined that the boom plan was more economic. By this plan the Flint river was boomed for five miles or so up the stream above the Hamilton dam, and each mill owner secured boom rights at some place along this reach or river. The logs were then dropped into the river at any convenient place, and allowed to run down as they might; often the river was full from Flint to Columbiaville. These logs were marked with the owner's mark, and in one instance we find the mark made as a matter of record, as stated in the old records of Flint township. The men who run the logs were employed not by the mill owners, but by the boom company and they worked at the logs all summer, generally as many as forty men finding steady work in summer. The logs were run down the river and a man at each boom pulled the logs belonging to the boom owners into the opening made by a swinging boom that ran out into the passage in the middle of the river; the logs so boomed were arranged with reference to economy of space and, as needed, were run down to the mill. The logs of the various mill owners were made a basis for an assess- ment of the expenses of the boom operations and thus all danger of the earlier runs was avoided.
The river had its tragedies. In 1865 three men tried to run a log down near Columbiaville and the big end grounded on the apron of the dam; a log turned, throwing them off, and two of the three, Harrison Spencer and Ezra Collins, drowned, while Mack Lyman was saved.
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The river men responded when the war came and most all of them went out to serve in the military forces of the United States. It is said of them that they made the very best of soldiers, and certainly the preparation in camp, as axe men, as swampers, as skidders, as jam crackers, and sackers, was a school for the soldier that made for obedience to superiors, discipline and efficiency.
It remains to consider the wonderfully rapid development of the lumber industry in the period during and immediately subsequent to the Civil War. In 1862 the Flint & Pere Marquette railway was opened for traffic between Flint and Saginaw, and other lines were soon afterwards opened; by afford- ing means of rapid transportation to outside markets, these roads gave a tremendous impulse to all branches of business in the county, especially to lumbering. This, together with the increased demand for lumber created by the great Civil War, inaugurated for the lumbering interests of the Flint river valley an era of unexampled prosperity. It extended from about 1866 to the great revulsion which came with the financial panic of 1873-4. The zenith of prosperity was reached in the years 1869-1871. Then began a gradual decline. In 1870 nine mills were in operation in Flint with an an- nual capacity of ninety million feet of lumber. They employed over five hundred men. Their value ran up to a half million dollars. In 1878-79 there were but three in operation, employing less than half as many men and cutting but little over a third as many feet. The supply of logs was at that time rapidly diminishing on the upper waters of Flint river. Lumber production for export was approaching its end. Shingles were being exten- sively made, however, from old logging fields. The supply in Genesee county was already so far exhausted that only two small tracts remained, on sec- tion 15 in Forest township and a tract of less than fifteen acres in the town- ship of Richfield. After that, lumbering was continued largely by importing pine from Saginaw and neighboring counties.
One of the most famous lumbering establishments in the county was the Crapo mills, at Flint. In 1856 Henry H. Crapo, with characteristic fore- thought, conceived the idea of competing not only with the principal lumber- ing marts of the Eastern and Middle states, but with foreign countries. He came to Michigan in 1855, shortly after which he purchased for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a large tract of pine land in this region. It was his intention at the time to lumber this tract and float the logs to Saginaw, but shortly after, or nearly in 1856, he visited Flint and became satisfied that here was the point at which to manufacture this timber into lumber. In
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1856 he purchased the "Walkley" mill and during the summer of 1857 manufactured about two million feet of lumber, which was considered in those days an extensive business. As this mill was shut in by the property of McQuigg, Turner & Company, owners of the mill near the dam, he con- ceived the plan of purchasing that also. In the fall of 1857 he effected its purchase and in both mills during the season of 1858 manufactured about seven million feet of lumber. By March, 1858, he had his business thor- oughly established. He returned to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where his family were residing, and moved with them to Flint. After this time the "old mills" were improved by the addition of new machinery. They were soon run to a capacity of twelve million feet per annum, even before any rail- road was projected to Flint. Before the construction of the Flint & Holly railroad, which was built largely by the energy of Mr. Crapo, the good lumber sawed at these mills was hauled with teams to Holly and Fenton- ville, to the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad, and from these points shipped east and south.
In 1860 Mr. Crapo purchased on the opposite side of the Flint river the mill known as the "Busenbark" mill, which he ran two years and after- wards sold. In 1864 the large planing-mill sash, door and blind-factory was added to his business and turned out annually many million feet of dressed lumber, as well as large quantities of sash, doors, blinds, mouldings and boxes. The old "Walkley" mill was destroyed by fire in the season of 1865, but fortunately little lumber was burned with it owing to the rule always adhered to of keeping the space about the mills clean. Hardly had the ruins of this mill become cold when the debris was cleared away and the founda- tion of a larger mill was laid. This mill, with the old mill at the dam, had a capacity for sawing over twenty million feet per annum, and the two mills were run to nearly that limit until the old mill was burned in 1877. This immense amount of lumber has found a market principally at the East and South, and some of it has even been shipped to San Francisco around Cape Horn. The saw-mill and planing-mill were later shipped with all the mod- ern improvements for the manufacture of lumber and sash, doors, blinds, mouldings and packing-boxes.
Henry H. Crapo, the founder of this large business and governor of Michigan for two terms-1864-68-died at Flint in July, 1869, but the business was continued without any material change under the able manage- ment of his only son, William W. Crapo. William Crapo Durant, a grand- son of Governor Crapo, received his first business training in the Crapo mill and yards.
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The impetus thus given by Mr. Crapo was soon followed by Alexander McFarlan, William Hamilton and Messrs. Begole, Atwood, Fox, Carpenter, Smith and Eddy. Alexander McFarlan's mills were established in 1850, the firm at that time having been Hazelton & McFarlan. In May of the follow- ing year the mills were destroyed by fire and Mr. McFarlan purchased the interest of his partner and rebuilt; in April, 1863, they were again burned and immediately rebuilt; again, in 1871, they were pursued by fire and de- stroyed and larger mills erected. The material worked was altogether pine, the logs being cut from timber-lands owned by the proprietor in Genesee and Lapeer counties and floated down the Flint river. The power employed was steam. Two circular saws of large dimensions were run, also apparatus for cutting lath and shingles. The capacity of the mills reached eleven million feet a year. These mills were distinguished as being the oldest on the Flint river.
The lumber-mills of Begole, Fox & Company were established in Sep- tember, 1865. The partners were Josiah W. Begole, David S. Fox and George L. Walker. They ranked among the heaviest lumber dealers in the city and were large manufacturers of lath and shingles.
Jerome Eddy's mill was built in the year 1868 on the corner of Kearsley and Island streets. It had a capacity for dressing ten million feet of lum- ber, manufacturing about ten thousand doors and a corresponding number of sash and blinds per annum. A destructive fire consumed the first mill erected, but Mr. Eddy immediately rebuilt it. In three months from the time it was burned one of the most perfect and complete mills in the state took its place.
The firm of Newall & Company was one of the oldest establishments engaged in the manufacture of sash, doors and blinds. It was established in 1855, embracing as partners Thomas Newall, George E. Newall and S. C. Randall. The firm of Beardslee, Gillies & Company built a planing-mill in 1867 and the next year added the manufacture of boxes. Hiram Smith's mills, built in 1877, made a specialty of handling hardwood. Decker & Has- kell's stave-mills had their origin in 1870. They were devoted entirely to the manufacture of staves and headings. In May, 1874, a fire destroyed the mill and much of the stock, but new buildings and machinery soon took the place of the old. The factory of W. B. Pellett was established in 1874 to manufacture sash, doors and blinds, but later made a specialty of extension- tables.
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A SUMMARY OF THE LUMBER SITUATION.
F. A. Aldrich, in sketching the industrial history of Flint, has well summed up the facts about the great period of lumbering in Genesee county and its relation to manufacturing industries allied to and growing out of it. Speaking of the fifties, he says :
The time for expansion had arrived. The knowledge of the resources of the country, the possibilities, the men to accomplish things, the money, had all awaited the ripening of events, and all of these elements had been moving steadily toward this period. There were a few saw-mills along the banks of the river, doing a small business, but there was no enormous output. What surplus was accumulated was hauled to Saginaw, where there were shipping facilities and where buyers for Eastern yards assembled cargoes from many similar sources of supply and shipped them east by sailing vessels to Buffalo, and beyond via the Erie canal. Albany was then the lumber distributing center of America and most of Michigan's forest product found its way there. Explorations had shown the great bodies of magnificent white pine forest in Lapeer and Tuscola counties and in the northwestern corner of Genesee county. The meanderings of the Flint river and its north and south branches made pathways into the very heart of all this wealth of timber and seemed to invite it to come out from its solitude of years to the glamour of civilization and add to the making of a new era. A. McFarlan, William Hamilton, H. H. Crapo, Begole-Fox & Company and J. B. Atwood & Company were the chief own- ers of thousands of acres of timber lands along the banks of these streams and from small beginnings they evolved an immense lumber business, so that the city and sur- rounding country became dependent to a vast degree upon this industry. The original idea was to float all the logs to Saginaw for milling, but the nature of the river showed Flint to be pre-eminently the place for handling them. The saw-mills could expand under the influence of management, money and market, and the men in Flint possessed the first two of these elements and the further aggressiveness of making an avenue to reach the market. The plank road served for sveral years, but railroad facili- ties were imperative. They came because the men of Flint said they must come, and these men did their full share in promoting, capitalizing, and even operating. The first rail outlet was to Saginaw in 1862, followed something over a year later by the connecting link between Flint and Holly, making an all-rail route to the South and East.
All this was accomplished during war times, and with the close of that tragedy came the leap in all kinds of commercial undertakings. Thoughts and ambitions and efforts could be centered on material domestic expansion and all things pertaining to industrial Flint were ripe to take advantage of these conditions. Eight or ten mills had come into operation at various points along the river front and millions of feet of logs were being cut up in the forest sections, poured into the river and floated to Flint. The whole industrial atmosphere was surcharged with lumbering and the ramifi- cations of the industry were many, affecting innumerable interests. An army was gradu- ally accumulated in the woods with which communication must be maintained and to which supplies must be forwarded. There must be a plan and system for driving the logs from where the woodmen felled them, to the saw-mills, resulting in the Flint River Boom Company. Another army gathered around the mills, running machines, sorting, piling and shipping lumber. The selling force was by no means a small one; the accounting for all the business required another crop of helpers. So several thou- sand men were attracted here and affiliated with this splendid enterprise. They were
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added to the population of the town and had to be provided with homes. Building flour- ished, attracting carpenters. They must needs eat and be clothed, so that stores multi- plied, with their attendant proprietors and clerks. There was a steady train of wagons or sleighs, hauling foodstuffs into the woods for men and beasts, and the country around the city was the source of supply. Requirements of every sort were active, and every element of trade participated in the prosperity of lumber.
The fame of Flint as a lumber center was wide and buyers were stationed here to bid for the products of these mills or arrange for special cuts that building require- ments in any direction might demand. Earnings were good and a splendid business training came to thousands of men who afterwards arrived at that stage where they took up and have carried on the stream of prosperity that had its rise in the primitive lumbering days, swelled into the rushing, mighty flood of the seventies, and was later to pass on in the deep, steady, strong current of a fixed and diversified industrial activ- ity. Statistics are not particularly interesting and the billions of feet of lumber cut in Flint count for little now except as leaving a legacy far more valuable than the computed price of all the forest products that have passed through Flint's gateways of commerce. That some of it weathered Cape Horn to fill orders in San Francisco, or sought a market in Europe or Asia, is a mere lesson in geography. Lumbering com- menced to decline in the eighties; it was history in the nineties, but it left wealth in homes, property, mercantile enterprises, schools, churches and, equal to all the rest, men-men who had been trained to meet emergencies, to accomplish things, to work out problems and to succeed. It left women who had made homes, homes indeed; it left a society that was welded together by the unity of a common interest.
A CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF BUSINESS.
A few asked the question, "What next?" and of a very truth for a year or two the destiny of Flint hung trembling in the balance. More went to work with energy to create "next." The character of lumbering changed and for some years logs cut far to the north were hauled in by trainloads, tumbled into the river, to follow the pathway of their predecessors, up the gang and out in boards to waiting cars. Lumber cut in mills that had followed the receding pine northward was stopped off here, milled in planing-mills and forwarded as a dressed product to the East. In the forests out of which Genesee county was carved were great sections, or, in mining terms, pockets of hardwood, and in the clearing process such came to Flint in vast quantities in the shape of bolts. To convert these into barrels, or barrel material, was another manufacturing interest, which lasted for some time after the pine lumbering had practically ceased and was one of the many industries into which manufacturing business resolved itself as the supreme lumbering interests were dissolving into fragments. So the planing and stave- mills superseded the saw-mills and the lumber workers were still in demand. Their earnings still swelled the sum total of domestic transactions; their families still formed part of the social body and their children were growing up for future commercial activities.
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