USA > Michigan > Muskegon County > History of Muskegon County, Michigan: with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3
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There are the mills, erected only a few years since, surrounded by acres of sawdust and other refuse, witnessing to the stupendous work performed. On entering, what a humming, buzzing from all sides !- a gigantic bee-hive. Hundreds of persons at work in ad- mirable order, making use of the irresistible steam power, in the most diversified way, without a minute's loss of time-engine and men working in unison. A log five feet in diameter floats towards the mill; a moment more, and fastened to a chain, it moves up the slideway, goes straight under the saws, and in another minute is con- verted into boards, which without delay are passed under the edg- ing machine and are ready for the market. Meanwhile, before a car is ready to receive them at the lumber pile, all the edging slabs are transformed into pickets or lath with the regularity of clockwork. These sights make an impression on the thoughtful spectator which is more than simple admiration; he feels overpowered by the won- ders which man is capable of performing by perseverance and en- ergy, coupled with an intelligent use of the forces of nature.
To the first settlers of the country the heavy forests were gen- erally an impediment, as with great labor the trees had to be cut down and burned, simply to get them out of the way. This system of destruction, a necessity at first, has been continued down to the present, so that there is some necessity for measures to preserve the forests from wholesale destruction.
WHITE RIVER is next in size and importance, and is also a good stream for water power and for logging and lumbering purposes. It is the only other river in the county besides the Muskegon that is managed by a booming company, of whose operations we shall speak hereafter.
White River takes its rise in Newaygo County, draining its west- ern portion, passing Hesperia, and thence across Oceana County, where it receives several new branches, and drains the southeast of that county, thence it crosses the northern portion of Muskegon County, draining Blue Lake, Whitehall, Montague and White River townships, besides portions of other townships.
CEDAR CREEK is also an important lumbering stream, and runs parallel to Muskegon River within about a mile of it for nearly fifteen miles. It empties into Muskegon Lake.
Then there are Duck Lake and Duck River, in the west of Fruit- land, early a great lumbering point for Charles Mears; Black Lake and Black Creek, in Norton, where the Ferrys have a sawmill; Crock- ery Creek drains Ravenna, Casnovia, and part of Moorland. Be- sides all these streams, there is an innumerable number of smaller brooks which, like that sung of by Tennyson, "go on forever," for- ever fertilizing wherever they touch. Then there is no end of small lakes in the interior, especially in Blue Lake, Holton, Cedar Creek, Egelston and Moorland.
All this makes Muskegon a land of lakes and rivers, and as it was a land heavily timbered, its waters in the past have played no insignificant part, and in the future the husbandman and stock raiser will find them a necessary element of success. In Muskegon there is truly " the voice of many waters."
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HISTORY OF MUSKEGON COUNTY.
SOIL.
Prof. Rominger, the State Geologist, in speaking of the form- ation of the soil, says:
The soil covering the Lower and also the greater part of the Upper Peninsula is most generally formed of drift or else of alluvial material; that is to say, it is composed of more or less finely com- minuted and triturated fragmental rock masses, and of larger blocks, of the most various formations, transported there from the north by moving glaciers and floating icebergs, or washed to the spot by currents of water, as according to all evidences the entire country under consideration has been deeply submerged at a time subse- quent to the glacier period. This loose material covers the surface of the Lower Peninsula almost universally, often amounting to a thickness of 200 and 300 feet; it has likewise in the Upper Penin- sula a large surface extent.
The drift soil is pre-eminently adapted to the growth of plants; its composition of a great variety of mineral substances furnishes an inexhaustible supply of the various mineral constituents necessa- ry for vegetable life. We find sometimes limited areas covered with a light, rather sterile, sandy drift soil; in other places a heavy but quite fertile clay soil occurs, but in most instances the drift soil in Michigan is composed of a mixture of clay with sand and gravel, which combines all the properties requisite for the production of a rich vegetation. It is easily tilled, sufficiently retentive of moisture in dry times, and porous enough in wet seasons to prevent the drowning of crops.
TRANSFORMATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES.
The southern portion of the Lower Peninsula, 40 or 50 years ago an unbroken, desolate, forest land, is now transformed into a mosaic work of carefully cultivated farms interspersed with hundreds of opulent cities and villages; the land has become very valuable and immigrants generally seek for cheaper homes than they can find there. The northern half of the Lower Peninsula is not in- ferior in fertility to the southern; it is only thinly populated and much of the land is in its primitive forest condition. These forests are the great stores of 'pine timber, which is exported from Michi- gan to all parts of the United States. The value of this timber has hitherto attracted the attention of wealthy, enterprising capitalists to these lands, which by their peninsular position are somewhat aside from the great highways of immigrants to the west, and few of them have stopped there to look for a home, as the access to these districts was formerly rather difficult, and moreover their rep- utation as being pine lands was, in the eyes of the agriculturist, a poor recommendation, for pine is generally believed to grow only on a sterile sandy soil, which is true with exclusively pine forests, but the e occupy only a small part of the district, and the most valua- ble pine grows scattered through the hardwood lands, which form much the larger proportion of the forests and are a sure indication of a good quality of soil.
OPENINGS FOR THE ENTERPRISING.
Large tracts of this better class of land from which the pine trees have been cut, but on which the hardwood is left untouched, or of fertile lands cleared of their timber, lie idle and can be bought at reasonably low prices from their present owners; there is also some government land to be had yet at the original price of $1.25 per acre, and thousands of farmers could enter into these lands, and lay the foundations of a home at very little expense in money."
In another part of this work we have given the method of treating the sand soils, which has proved so successful in the case of Mr. Linderman, on his Cedar Creek farm. As in Ottawa, this
question of how to manage sand soil, is also an important one in Muskegon.
The soil of Muskegon varies from a light sand, to a sandy loam, and in many cases, especially in the interior, to a heavy clay. In Moorland, Egelston and other adjoining towns, there is much heavy muck soil, which on being drained yields enormously.
The following from Mr. S. B. Peck, a leading authority on all matters pertaining to the fruit interest, will be read with interest as showing that the large and increasing fruit business has grown from a very small beginning :-
"When I came to Muskegon in the fall of 1859 I could find but two persons who had sufficient faith in the soil even to plant a few potatoes in the garden. These were W. F. Wood and Rev. Mr. Gillet. Others said the soil was so light that a warranty deed would not hold it.
Nevertheless as I had 60 acres of wild stump land (now in the city limits) which I had bought before coming here, upon which, as elsewhere, I saw growing thrifty oak grubs, I concluded the soil would grow potatoes. So I cleared up an acre, fenced it with rails, and domonstrated the fact that it would grow potatoes and other garden vegetables but not in great profusion without manure. See- ing upon the map as well as from ocular demonstration the imme- diate presence of the greater and lesser lakes, Michigan and Muske- gon, and knowing the ameliorating influence of such bodies of water, especially upon their leeward sides, I concluded this climate to be a favorable one for such tender fruits as the peach, apricot, &c. So in the spring of 1862 I planted my improved acre with peaches and apples alternately. At the same time S. R. Sanford planted 1000 peach trees on what is now block 386 of the city. I should have mentioned that in the spring of 1861 F. Joslyn planted a small plat of peaches on elevated ground on the north side of Ryer- son's creek, and a Mr. Sanderson a similar plat upon a similar site on the south side, both plats now in the first ward of the city.
All these trees made good growth, and gave an impetus to the planting, as they seemed to demonstrate the fact that the peach was here at home. Mr. Sanford and myself however met with a set- back some three years after the above planting, by some 150 being killed down to the roots in early spring on a sudden stiff breeze after a warm spell of some ten days. This occurred only in slight depressions in the surface. Our soil generally thaws from below in the spring and leaves no standing water; but that year it com- menced on the surface and the water settled in these depressions, and froze around the crowns of the trees, while at an elevation of ten inches above this water the trees went through safe. This taught us to avoid hollows in peach planting. All these trees made good growth, which induced me to put out more peaches, apples, plums, cherries, currants and grapes. Sanford also put out the same kinds, filling up what is now block 385.
These fruits were all tolerably successful except apples, the fruit of which has always been mainly destroyed or mutilated by the larvæ of the codling moth. In consequence of these worms being always brought to our market with the country windfall fruit, it has been impossible to war against them successfully.
In February of 1875 all the peach and most of the other fruit trees were killed. Grapes escaped death below the snow line, but the crop for the following season was ruined. This general ruin occurred in all places of the city and township, but in more elevated aspec.s near the big lake, both north and south, where the winds from the lake had full sweep, either a part or all of their fruit trees escaped. These facts have taught the people of this lake shore to seek for their fruits, not the protection of hills and forests, or in fact any wind-breaks, but elevations with contiguous depressions, where the cold air in times of frost can drain off to lower land or
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HISTORY OF MUSKEGON COUNTY.
water. Grapes seem here to be more successful than tree fruits, and for that reason I have paid more attention to this fruit for the past five years than to any other. With the thirty-five varieties that I have tried, I am not fully satisfied, but have just obtained five more for next spring."
J. P. Thompson, many years Secretary of the State Pomologi- cal Society of Michigan, says: "The fruit belt of Michigan is not an unknown and undiscovered country. There is a river in the ocean, 'and there is a fruit belt by the Lake Shore.' That the waters of the lakes have an influence upon the climate of the entire penin- sula (Michigan) is not questioned. That the waters of Lake Mich- igan have a direct and modifying power upon the western shore of the State, is also undoubted and yearly demonstrated."
In the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1869 we find it recorded, "The 'Michigan fruit region ' popularly so called, is now known to extend the whole length of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan."
The Pomological report gives the extent of this belt as 250 miles, including the portion of eleven counties bordering upon Lake Michigan. Peaches grow in all these counties and hence it is called ' the peach belt of Michigan.' Each of the ports in these counties has steam vessels in communication with Chicago and the greatest distributing markets in the known world. A railroad also runs through all these counties, so that land and water carrying permeates the entire belt. The market facilities are good as well as the trans- portation facilities. This is the Michigan Lake Shore fruit belt. We are willing to acknowledge this, par excellence, as the fruit belt of the State. The seasons give the strawberries, raspberries, black- berries, gooseberries, currants, grapes, peaches, pears, plums, quinces and apples.
E. P. Rae, prince of fruit-growers, in a late number of Scribner, says: "It is of vital importance that the fruit farm should be near good shipping, and that there be sufficient population in the immediate vicinity to furnish pickers in abundance."
Much more general evidence might be given to show the extent of the known fruit belt of Michigan. On the west, southwest and northwest, from whence are nearly all the winds we have, and surely all the prevailing winds, lies the "ever open, ever free" Lake Michigan, whose surface is never, even in the coldest weather, covered with ice, but free to yield its stored warmth "to temper the winds to the shorn lamb," and open to the crafts which ever dot its surface and crowd its ports. Subject to these modified winds, warmed in the winter and cooled in the summer by the lake influence to delicious breezes, Muskegon and Ottawa have the fruit belt, and a healthful climate. Along the whole shore are elevations, hills among which "sweet vales in dream-like beauty hide," and among them to the earnest fruit grower 'love the air with music fills, and calm content and peace abide.' These elevations give, not only variety to the landscape, but atmospheric drainage, an essential thing to successful fruit cult- ure. Take your map and scan the entire coast. It is a vast island- less shore of a vast islandless lake, but cutting through the ranges of hills and highlands, that form the boundary of its waves on the oft-recurring streams where sweet, pure waters supply and form the great lake. Each of these streams meet at a north entrance to a small lake or bay, and around and upon these are the towns, the vineyards and the orchards of the fruit belt. Along the heads of these lakes and bays may be found the railroad connecting all these regions with the great market of Chicago as well as with the lumber districts of the north and the inland cities of the south and east. While you have your map before yor, please notice the exact location of the city of Muskegon. Midway and in the centre of this noted fruit belt is the river and Lake Muskegon, dividing this land of Po- mona in twain. Near the head of Muskegon Lake, a body of water two
miles in width and six miles in length, lies the city of Muskegon. Of this lake a writer, in the report of the Board of Agriculture, says: "There is probably no finer view of commerce and manufact- ure combined than is presented by this lake. At the head of this lake the Muskegon River discharges its waters drawn from Houghton Lake and hundreds of intervening lakes and streams, tributary to the river. Bearing upon its surface the millions of logs that are annually required in the great lumber manufactories of this city and go thence to build the cities and homes of the Great Prairie West."
From what has been shown it will be seen that Muskegon has a favored location in the midst of the famous "Fruit Belt" of Mich- igan. That she has market communications is also plainly to be seen. Connected by fast sailing steamers that daily cross Lake Michigan, she is next door to Chicago and Milwaukee, the great em- poriums of the fruit trade which supply the very many cities, vil- lages and towns of the vast country beyond them. Better still, express trains with all the facilities of steam brakes, refrigerator cars, etc., leaving at a late hour each evening, take the freshly picked fruit during the cool night time, and deliver it in the best condition upon the hungry Chicago market at the hour of opening business. East- ward, northward and southward, express and other trains carry the fruit to lumber camps, the inland cities, and where wanted, and there is sufficient competition to give it fair rates of freight. Its home market is excellent. A city of 16,000 inhabitants engaged largely in manufacturing and commerce, must be large consumers of the products of the soil.
That this locality has the other requisites of a successful fruit growing location named by Mr. Rae, namely, help to pick the fruit, no one can for a moment question, who is acquainted with the city and its population. No difficulty has yet been experienced in getting plenty of help to pick all the fruit grown.
The next question to consider is the character of the soil and the cost of land upon which the fruit is to be grown. Every variety of soil exists in the near vicinity. There are stiff clay, loams and sandy soil; hill and lowland, small beds of muck, some marl, some marsh for cranberries; broad, elevated plateaus for peaches; south hillsides for grapes, and any amount of natural strawberry and black- berry soil. All of which can be found upon the same farm, so that the fruit-grower can have a succession of fruits which by care and management can be put into the market every month in the year.
The cost of fruit lands varies from $5 per acre to $15, for un- tilled land, depending upon location, nearness to city or to points of shipping, while cultivated farms can be purchased at from $15 to $50 per acre, according to buildings and improvements. Some of the most desirable locations might exceed even this figure.
FRUIT.
The first to go into fruit to any extent in the City of Muskegon was Samuel B. Peck and his son-in-law, S. R. Sanford, ex-sheriff of Ottawa County, about the year 1861. Mr. Peck has ever since continued to take a great interest in fruit-growing, and is an authority on the subject. Mr. Cockburn, son-in-law of the late Mr. Moulton, had in 1881 charge of a large grapery between Muskegon and Bear lakes. He had ten acres in grapes, with which he was very successful, and fairly successful with peaches. Mr. Peck was the man that directed Mr. Moulton's attention to the spot as the best for his purposes. About 1866 or 1867, Mr. Moulton came from St. Joseph, where he had a fruit farm. Mr. Moulton's success has been uniform with the exception of the summer of 1875, when his grapes were mostly killed to the shore line. He died in 1879, and his wife the year following.
Mr. Peck, for the last few years, has devoted his attention to the testing of varieties of grapes on his place in the south part of
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HISTORY OF MUSKEGON COUNTY.
the city of Muskegon, consisting of twenty acres under cultivation, with two acres of grapes; he exhibited ten varieties at the American Pomological Society's exhibition at Boston in 1881, which were said to be the best specimens of the kind exhibited on that occasion. Mr. Peck is experimenting with thirty-five varieties. The Eumelon and the Roger's eight varieties are, in his opinion, the best adapted for the market. He thinks that the white varieties, for which there is at present quite a rage, will not ultimately succeed, owing to a want of flavor. The red varieties are, he thinks, the best adapted to the general wants of the people as to flavor. The Isa- bella and Catawba will not ripen here. The To Kalon scarcely develops in this section unless special care is taken to prevent over- bearing. The black varieties were the first cultivated and do well here. In Moulton's grapery are chiefly Concord, with some Iona and Isabella and Ives' seedling, Hartford, Champion and others. The Iona grape is uncertain and difficult to raise, but it has the best flavor of any raised here. Unless a man is a good nurse he should not attempt to raise it. The Israelli, introduced by Dr. Grant at the same time as the Iona, is perfectly worthless, as it does not bear to any extent.
We shall not, in this place, go into a minute account of the rise of the fruit interest. This will be given under the history of each particular locality, and in the sketches of individuals who have helped to develop this interest. We might, however, here refer to C. N. Merriman, of Duck Lake, in Fruitland, who has gone, for some years, very extensively into peaches and other fruits, in con- nection with Charles Mears, of Chicago. Mr. Merriman is very skillful and thorough, and consequently is meeting with success. Mr. A. T. Linderman is also a good authority on the fruit question, being ex-Secretary of the State Pomological Society. In Norton and Fruitport, especially on Black Lake, fruit is extensively cultivated. Ira Porter is said to have been the first to introduce fruit there. The names of the present growers will be found under the history of their respective towns. Charles H. Cook, in Montague, is a very successful peach raiser, and there are rising up in every township good orchards of peaches and other fruits, and strawberries, and small fruits are receiving their full share of attention.
MUSKEGON SALT.
THE MASON AND TRUESDELL WELLS.
Ever since it was first demonstrated that salt could be produced in Michigan, and more especially since it has been so successfully produced in the Saginaw district, the people of Muskegon have never entirely abandoned the idea that the production of salt could and should be added to the industries of their city. Efforts to find brine at Muskegon have been made several times. About fifteen years ago the Truesdell well was put down to a considerable depth, and brine was obtained; the drilling tools got caught in the well, how- ever, and it had to be abandoned. After that unfortunate and ex- pensive experiment the salt question was dropped for several years, but not altogether.
In January, 1872, the Mason Lumber Company concluded to make another test by sinking a well near their mill. A number of mill owners interested in the experiment subscribed a sum to help defray the expenses. In May, 1872, a contract was en- tered into with a well known firm of well borers, and work was soon after commenced. It progressed with various interruptions during the years 1872, 1873 and 1874, and before June of the latter year had reached a depth of two thousand feet; there " salt bearing rock" was found; the stratum was fifty feet thick and yielded a flow of very strong brine. Hoping to discover another stratum below it,
the boring was continued to a depth of two thousand four hundred feet without success. In January. 1875, a test of the well with a salt pump and pump tubing was made. The pump was placed 900 feet from the surface. It was found that there was not a sufficient flow of brine to supply it. At each stroke a vacuum would form in the pump chamber and finally the engine was unable to move it. The contractor pronounced the well a failure. Not willing to give up all hope, the Mason Lumber Company had the well sunk two hundred and twenty-six feet deeper without any more favorable re- sult. They then abandoned it. The work had run along, with a number of accidents and delays, through three years, and $18,000 were expended; of this amount the Mason Lumber Company con- tributed two-thirds, the balance was raised by subscription. The well was bored to a depth of 2,627 feet. A large casing pipe extends down 225 feet to the rock, inside of which there is a string of four- teen feet of casing pipe four and five-eighths inches in diameter.
Nothing further was done towards boring or looking for salt for some years. Seeing in the success of the Manistee well further encouragement, as it confirmed the theory that the salt deposit is to be found, not only in the eastern part of the State, but also on the shores of Lake Michigan, a number of mill owners resolved to test the old Mason well again and more fully. A subscription was started and the following firms and individuals promised their aid:
Ryerson, Hills & Co., L. G. Mason, W. S. Gerrish, C. H. Hackley & Co., A. V. Mann & Co., Stimson, Fay & Co., F. S. Farr, Agent, Torrent & Arms Lumber Co., M. Wilson & Co., A. Rodgers & Co., Swan, White & Smith, O. P. Pillsbury & Co., C. D. Nelson & Co., Walworth & Reed, S. C. Hall, McGraft & Montgomery, W. H. Bigelow & Co., Thayer Lumber Co., Chicago & West Michigan R. R. Co., R. J. Millen & Co.
A. S. Montgomery and M. A. Ryerson were appointed a com- mittee to conduct the test. A contract was made with the firm of Marrs & Miller, of Chicago, to do the work, and they commenced on May 25th. The well had been standing so long unused that it was found to be in a poor condition to make as thorough a test as was to be desired. The casing pipe which extends some 1,400 feet down had originally been allowed to "run away" and had "tele- scoped" in several places. This probably explains why the con- tractor originally did not place his pump valves lower than 900 feet. Experience at that time had shown that pump valves ought to be placed as near the salt rock as possible. The pipe had also become rusty and the well was full of mud. After swaging out and clean- the pipe and clearing the well, the pump at the end of a string of 1400 feet of three-inch pipe was lowered. and the pipe packed at the lower extremity to shut out the fresh water from above. An effort to work the pump showed the flow of brine to be insufficient to sup- ply it. It was considered that that state of things might be due to the coating of the well, so two "Roberts Torpedoes" were exploded, one two thousand and fifteen feet down, the other two thousand and thirty-five feet. The natural effect of this was to cave the well at those points and loosen the seams of the salt rock. In cleaning out the well after this operation it was left blocked up below two thousand and one-hundred feet, as no salt rock had been found lower than that.
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