USA > Michigan > Saginaw County > History of Saginaw County, Michigan; historical, commercial, biographical, Volume II > Part 45
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The first experiment in the use of a band saw for cutting lumber was made by James J. McCormick, in his mill at Bay City about 1858, but proved a failure from the multiplicity of wheels employed to secure a proper tension, and was discarded as impractical. At the Centennial Exposition of 1876 a band saw mill was exhibited by J. F. Hoffman, of Fort Wayne, Indiana ; and he may fairly be called the father of the practical band-saw mill. It was not
399
THE LUMBER INDUSTRY
until about 1883-84 that the possibilities of the band saw began to gain recog- nition, and in a highly perfected condition has since found general acceptance in the saw mill world. The chief advantage of the band saw lies in its speed and thin kerf, thereby reducing the cost of operation and also the waste. Especially is this true in resawing. the facilities of which have been greatly increased by the line of perfected resaws manufactured in Saginaw by W. B. Mershon & Company. Starting about twenty-five years ago in a small way, by the making of a few resaw machines, the invention of Edward C. Mershon, for local trade, the business has grown to enormous proportions, and resaws for every purpose and need are made and shipped to every country on the globe.
Logs and Booms
The log product of the vast forests to the North and West was floated mainly to the mills of the Saginaw River, for the handling of which booms became a prime necessity. As the number of operators putting logs of vari- ous marks into the different streams, increased, it was necessary that some
RAFTING LOGS
A LOG DUMP
central point should be established, at which the logs could be separated and each owner be enabled to claim his own. To this end boom companies were incorporated, and large sorting works erected at the mouth of the various main streams.
At each banking ground where the logs were dumped into the stream. the end of each log was marked with a hammer containing the letter or device adopted by the owner as a distinctive mark. These marks consisted in many instances of a single letter, and in others of a device such as crossed keys. square and compass, a boot, an anchor, or a square or diamond enclosing an initial letter in capitals two or three inches long. Enough hammer strokes of the letter or character were struck upon each log to ensure that whatever side of the log floated upward. a mark would be visible. In this simple man- ner the logs of a score or a hundred different owners would be separated at the sorting gap, so that each owner could receive his own.
The logs which had been dumped promiscuously into the stream at vari- ous points, were floated by the current to the head of the boom works, where they were diverted from the main stream into a large boom or enclosure
400
HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
occupying one-half of the river and reaching for miles up its course. At the lower end was a narrow sorting gap, through which, as each log passed it was examined for the owner's mark upon its end, and run into a pocket con- taining logs of the same mark. As the logs of each owner accumulated they were rafted, by securing each by a slotted wooden pin driven into its side at the middle, through which a rope was stretched making "strings," or rafts, to be floated or towed to the mill boom of the owner. These operations, including the delivery of rafts to the mill booms, were performed by the boom companies.
The Output of the Tittabawassee
The Tittabawassee was the leading boom of the Saginaw district, as indeed of the State. The first boom on this stream was built in 1856 by Joseph A. Whittier for Charles Merrill & Company, and from that date until 1864 about one billion seven hundred million feet of logs were rafted out to supply the Saginaw mills. In 1864 the Tittabawassee Boom Company was organized to take over the business, and that year rafted out ninety million feet of logs, leaving six million in the boom. Two years later the company had twelve miles of booms, gave employment to about two hundred and fifty river men, expended twenty-one thousand dollars for rope to be used in rafting, and rafted out one hundred and eighty-six million feet of logs. In 1867 Joseph E. Shaw was president of the company, Joseph A. Whittier. secretary, Ammi W. Wright, treasurer, and Charles Burleson, agent ; and the company sorted and rafted nine hundred sixty-seven thousand six hundred and ninety-five pieces, scaling over two hundred and thirty-six million feet.
The high tide of the output of this famous stream was reached in 1882, when six hundred eleven million eight hundred and sixty-three thousand feet of pine saw logs were rafted and delivered to the owners. From that date the cutting of logs gradually fell off. until in 1895 only fifteen million feet were rafted, and in the following year ten million feet. The total output of the Tittabawassee and its tributaries aggregated eleven billion eight hun- dred and fifty million feet, figures which stagger the mind to grasp. No other logging stream has floated such an enormous quantity of logs, and the high record is likely to stand for generations.
The Famous Cork Pine of the Cass
Next in importance was the cork pine of the Cass River, the first cutting of which was as far back as 1836. on the banks of Perry Creek. During a period of fifty years, in which was witnessed the rise and fall of logging on this stream, the finest growth of cork pine timber in the United States was swept away, and a fine agricultural country has taken its place. While the stream was not as prolific of timber as some other Michigan rivers, it made a notable showing with one billion one hundred and twenty-six million feet, and its fame in point of quality will live as long as the annals of Michigan lumbering are preserved.
The first saw logs from the Cass were cut in a little mill that had been put up by E. W. Perry, on the banks of the creek that bore his name, near the present village of Tuscola. The mill was constructed primarily to supply the local demand for lumber, that section beginning to attract settlers, but even its limited capacity was more than sufficient to supply the wants of the locality, and as the stock accumulated Mr. Perry sought other markets for it. Cass River at that time was obstructed by driftwood and snags, and before any attempt was made to clear the stream, this pioneer lumberman made up the lumber in the form of small cribs and ran them down the river. He succeeded in reaching Saginaw with the greater portion of his stock, and
F
火更年
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吉神
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THE LUMBER-JACKS AT THEIR NOON MEAL IN DEPTHS OF FOREST
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
shipped sixty thousand feet to Cleveland on the schooner Lorame, Captain Pool, in which market it was sold and Perry received his pay. In 1839 he shipped another cargo to Detroit, but before he received payment for it the bankruptcy law of 1840 became effective, and the purchaser of the lumber paid for it in a bankrupt's notice.
The first saw logs of any amount were rafted down the Cass River in the Spring of 1847. Curtis Emerson and James Eldridge, who were operat- ing the old yellow mill which was near the site of the City Hall, sent a lum- herman from Maine, named Daggett, up the Cass to make sellections of timber which it was proposed to purchase and stock the mill. Daggett went over this section and returned with a doleful story that there was not enough timber available on the stream to furnish logs for a saw mill to run three years. Nevertheless, one tract of timber that he said would furnish logs for one seasons' run, was purchased, a road cut through to the timber, a camp started and logging begun. The camp was located within eighty rods of the present court house at Caro. The inaccuracy of the old lumberman's esti- mate is illustrated by the fact that twenty-six years later more than one hun- dred million feet of logs were rafted out of the Cass in a single season.
The difficulties of hauling supplies to that primitive camp on the Cass were herculean. Every pound of feed for man and beast had to be hauled from Saginaw, one-half of the distance being through a dense wilderness, with only a rough trail winding through the forest. There was no bailed hay in those days, and by the time a load of loose hay had been hauled many miles through the forest, a considerable portion of it was pulled away by the limbs of overhanging trees. But with all the trials and hardships, the early woodsmen were equal to the occasion, and a good stock of the famous cork pine was put into the stream, and in the Spring floated down to the mill at Saginaw.
In later years, it having been demonstrated that logs could be handled by organized effort more effectively and economically, the Huron Log Booming Company was organized with a capital of twenty-five thousand dollars. In 1804, the first year of its operations, the company had three miles of booms and rafted about forty million feet of logs, and in 1867 handled nearly seventy- two million feet. During the season from sixty to eighty river men were employed on the booms and rafts, and almost nineteen thousand dollars worth of rope was used in rafting. The officers of the company were: C. K. Eddy, president ; J. F. Bundy, secretary, and Edwin Eddy, treasurer.
The largest output of the Cass in a single season was in 1873, when one hundred four million four hundred and fifty-eight thousand feet of logs were rafted out: and the prices of cork pine logs ranged from two and a half dollars to five dollars a thousand feet. Such lumber as these logs produced. clear without shakes or sap, would bring on the market today more than one hundred dollars a thousand feet.
By 1885 the cork pine had been nearly cleaned up on this stream, but for about ten years longer hemlock and hardwoods were cut and rafted, but never exceeding five million feet in a season, ranging from one and a half million to three million feet. the logging operations being conducted by individual owners. One stand of cork pine, however, the last of its kind, consisting of two hundred and sixty trees, on a one hundred acre tract two miles east of Cass City, was held for thirty-five years by John Striffler and sold in 1907 to the Sterling Cedar Company, of Monroe, Michigan, for eighteen thousand dollars. The largest trees measured a little over five feet in diameter at the stump, while others ranged from four to two feet, the whole bunch cutting more than one hundred thousand feet of high grade lumber.
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THE LUMBER INDUSTRY
In 1865 the Bad River and tributaries contributed about twenty million feet of logs to the Saginaw mills; in 1866, twenty-three million feet, and in 1867 about nineteen million. During the same years the Flint River yielded thirty million, twenty-two million and five million five hundred thousand feet. respectively. mostly for John P. Allison, James Shearer & Company. William Hodgson nd J. S. Noyes. The rapid decline of production on this stream, of timber coming to the Saginaws, was attributed in part to the fact that a number of inland mills erected near the head waters of the river consumed a large portion of the output, and also to a combination of operators that existed to prevent logs from coming down. In 1897 only one hundred thou- sand feet of logs came out from the Bad and Flint Rivers, and the pine timber of these streams passed into history. Their output cut by the Saginaw mills was by no means inconsiderable, as nearly three hundred and nineteen million feet of logs were rafted from these streams from 1872 to the close of logging operations.
Lumber Production of the Saginaw River
Without delving too far in the realm of statistics, it may be well to include, for the sake of permanent record. the yearly cut of the Saginaw River mills, and the production of shingles, from 1851 to and including 1897, as follows :
Lumber, feet
Shingles pieces
1851
92.000.000
1875
Lumber, feet 581,558,273 583,950,771
pieces
1852
90,000,000
1870
1853
96.000,000
1877
640,166,231
124.030.240 204,316,725 167.806.750 153,999,750 218.934,000 241,075,160
1857
113,700,000
1881
976,320,317
304,925,590
1858
10,,500,000
1882
1.011.274,005
295,046,500 242,120,000 261,266,750
1861
120,000,000
1885
728,498,221
222.953,000
1862
128,000,000
1886
708.826,224
227.463.000
1863
133,580,000
1887
783,661,265
190,983,000
1864
215,000,000
1888
880.669,440
297,224,000
1865
250,639,340
1889
851,823,133
220.786,250
1866
349,767.344
1890
815,054.465
221.839,000
1867
423.963.140
60,983,000
1891
758.610,548
222.607,250
1868
451.395,225
104.104,500
1892
708.465,027
182,315,200
1869
523,500.830
119,843,500
1893
585,839,426
112,856,000
1870
576.720,606
178.570.000
1894
481,244,039
85,602,250
1871
529,682,878
187,691,000
1895
433,683,083
52,845,000
1872
602.118,980
150,001,750
1890
316,797,879
38.180,000
1873
619.877,021
218,394,558
1897
339,991,000
48.276,000
1874
573,632,771
208,489,500
22,930,757,551
5.580,535,223
1856
110,000,000
1880
574,162,757 736.106,000 873.047.731
1859
122.750,000
1883
938,675.078
1860
125.000.000
1884
978,497,853
1854
100,000,000
1878
1855
100,000,000
1879
Shingles
The above table will give a fair idea of the advance in lumber production Jrom year to year toward the maximum in 1882, and of the rapid decline both in lumber and shingles. No figures are available to show the shingle pro- duction previous to 1867, while no estimate can be offered regarding the minor production of lath and pickets, but the aggregate quantity of the former must have reached high figures.
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
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"SNAKING" LOGS BY OX TEAM, 1860
Many million feet of pine saw logs were rafted from points on the lluron shore north of Tawas and from Lake Superior to the Saginaw River, of which no records are at hand. In 1892 there came from these sources sixty-three million feet of logs, and in 1894 about thirty-eight million feet. The pine forests of Georgian Bay also yielded a great quantity of logs for our mills, the inception of the bag boom in 1891 marking the first year of any con- siderable movement from Canada to this river. In that year eighty million fect of logs were towed across the lake, the rafts ranging from two to six million feet, and while a raft occasionally went ashore in a gale, the loss of timber was only about five hundred pieces to every seventy thousand pieces rafted. In 1892 there was brought from Georgian Bay to Saginaw River, one hundred eighty-four million five hundred thousand feet of pine logs; and in 1893, two hundred and seventy five million feet to Michigan mills, while in 1897, one hundred and sixty-seventy million five hundred thousand feet came to this river. The estimated value of the logs handled in 1895 was eleven dollars a thousand. and many Michigan lumbermen made large purchases of pine timber limits in Canada to stock their mills.
Experiences in the North Woods
An old time tale of actual experiences in the northern pineries was told some years ago by the late William Callam, better known as "Bill Callam." one of the best known lumbermen of the valley. He came to Saginaw in boy- hood and grew up with Wellington R. Burt's big saw mill, his first job being to bundle lath, fifty pieces in a bundle. Every lath was made clean and sound in those days from the great slabs that came from the logs. After- ward he ran the lath saws, and as he grew stronger bolted the slabs, and finally became foreman of the mill in the sawing season, and foreman in the woods in the Winter.
While directing the felling, skidding and hauling of the logs to the stream, he looked timber a little, and one day far away from camp, away un the Chippewa, he found a most beautiful body of white pine timber. He
405
THE LUMBER INDUSTRY
sized it up as it stood, fifty, sixty, seventy and even eighty feet to the first limb of some of the giants, and stumbled across the witness tree and the corner stake that had been planted by the government surveyors only a few years before. It read, "Section Eighteen, One West," and appeared to him a beacon to success.
Ile was then twenty-three years of age, married, and had saved twenty- five hundred dollars from his earnings, which was deposited in the hands of his boss to his credit. At the end of the sawing season he quit his job at the mill, drew out his savings, and proceeded to carry out his cherished plan of making a start for himself.
"Before sun-up the next morning, he said, "I started out with a few dollars in my pocket, taking along as a companion an old muzzle-loading rifle that had fallen to me in a previous Thanksgiving raffle, and set out on a tramp up the Tittabawassee. This was in '58, in the Fall of the year, and the weather was fine. A gun wasn't taken out just for ornament in those days, for you could stumble on to bears and cats and deer, wolverines and such like, almost anywhere. Now, bears never trouble a man unless it's occasion- ally an old she-bear, unless he gets cornered, and then he is likely to get ugly. I got up to the mouth of the Pine and arranged with an old chap who ran a store there for an outfit. I packed up just eighty pounds of pork, beans, flour, tea and salt, and the next morning started up the Pine and branched off up the Chippewa.
"Before leaving Saginaw I had gone to the land office and had found that section eighteen. one west, still belonged to the government. I often wondered why, because it was a magnificent piece of timber, and logging operations had been going on up the Chippewa for several years. The next day I found the witness tree and the corner stake, and I spent a week in the woods up there racing off forty after forty, and picking ont the very best portion of the timber. I hadn't seen a soul, but about four o'clock one after- noon I saw tracks. They weren't Indian tracks either. I knew 'em. They were landlookers tracks, and they were fresh, and I said to myself, 'Bill, if you get this land you have got to get a move on yourself.' Bill got
"It was sixty miles by trail to Saginaw, and I waited just long enough to hide my gun in a hollow tree, and started, and I never stopped. I didn't go home to see my wife, but staggered into the land office just as it was being opened up, and I gasped: 'Let me see the map covering eighteen, one west, again ' I got the map in my hand. The section was still unentered. I picked out two hundred and forty acres of the six hundred and forty of the section, and had the clerk enter them to me. I handed him twenty-five dollars and told him 1 would be back in fifteen minutes with the rest of the three hundred. You know we bought government land then at ten shillings an acre. I rushed into my house, tore up a corner of the carpet, grabbed a handful of bills and hurried back to the land office. The clerk was just signing my receipt when up in front rode my old boss' landlooker with his horse dripping with sweat and dead beat. I had beaten him in afoot by just fifteen minutes.
"I bought six horses, hired fifteen French-Canadians, not one of whom could speak a word of English, bought supplies of fodder and provisions, axes, cant hooks and peavies, and loaded the whole outfit on an old sand scow that I chartered for the Winter. My wife went along. We poled that good hundred miles up the Saginaw, the Tittabawassee, the Pine and the Chippewa. On the upper river we would occasionally find a riffle, where we would have to unload the horses and drag the scow up to deep water again. Eventually we arrived at section eighteen, one west, and built a shanty of logs, roofed with rived shakes, partitioned off a little room in the rear for my wife's bed- room, and started camp for the Winter.
406
HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
"The boys slept and ate and fought and swore, and swore and fought and ate-al! in French-Canuck-in the main part of the shanty. We built another shanty for the horses; then we made a few roads that were necessary, and started in felling and skidding logs. We all worked like Trojans. Those Frenchmen worked hard because I worked with them. My days were busy in the woods, and the evenings I spent in repairing harness or mending sle.ls, and making whiffletrees. My wife was the only woman in the camp, and was the most popular person in it. Even out of the few materials at hand she conjured dainties for the men that they highly appreciated.
"It was a great Winter. The snow fell early and stayed without a break-up. We did hustle logs and in the Spring with the breaking up of the river, we started down a drive of one million four hundred thousand feet of cork pine logs, that averaged less than three to the thousand. The old sand scow was transformed into a cook house, and with my wife aboard. brought up the rear of the drive. We made a clean drive that Spring, and we got the whole bunch of logs safe and clean into the Green Point boom.
"I owed everybody. I didn't have a cent left to pay my crew, but I coaxed Uncle John Estabrook-dear old chap-to advance me twenty-five hundred dollars and take his pay in lumber at seven dollars for culls, twelve dollars for common and forty dollars for uppers. Seven, twelve and forty was no slouch of a price for lumber in those days. Well, that was my start in lumbering on my own account, and I stuck to it as long as there was any timber left in these parts."
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2
INTERIOR OF BUNK HOUSE
407
THE LUMBER INDUSTRY
Theology in Camp
Years ago, among the hardy river drivers of this section, there was a noted character named "Silver Jack," otherwise John Driscol, who was a "ongh" by nature and universally feared and dreaded throughout Northern Michigan. The incident embodied in this verse was given to the writer, Clarence H. Pearson, substantially as related, by one of Driscol's former associates :
"] was on the drive in eighty, Workin' under Silver Jack, Which the same is now in Jackson, An' ain't soon expected back: An' there was a chap amongst us By the name of Robert Waite, Kinder cute and smart and tonguey - Guess he was a graduate.
"He could talk on any subject From the Bible down to Hayle, An' his words flowed out so easy - Jest as smooth an' slick as oil; He was what they call a skeptic. And he loved to set and weave Hifalutin' words together Tellin' what he didn't b-leve.
"One day while we all was waitin, For a flood we sat around Smokin' nigger-head toboccer An' hearin' Bob expound : Hell, he said, was all a humbug. An' he showed as clear as day Thet the Bible was a fable, An' we 'lowed it looked that way.
" 'Miracles,' said he, 'an' sich like Is too rank for me to stan'; As for him they call the Savior, lle was jest a common man. You're a liar!' someone shouted, 'An' you've got to take it back.' Then everybody started - 'Twas the voice of Silver Jack.
"An' he cracked his fists together, An' he shucked his coat and cried. 'It was in thet thar religion Thet my mother lived an' died;
An' although I haven't allis Used the Lord exactly white, When I hear a chump abuse him He must eat his words or fight.'
"New this Bob, he warn't no coward, An' he answered bold and free: 'Stack yer duds and cut yer capers, For there ain't no flies on me.' An' they fit for forty minutes, AAn' the lads would whoop and cheer When Jack spit up a tooth or two, Or Bobby lost an ear.
"But at last Jack got him under An' he shuigged him onct or twict, An' Bob straightway acknowledged The divinity of Christ: But Jack kept reasonin' with him Till the poor cuss gin a yell An' allowed he'd been mistaken In his views concernin' hell. "Then the fierce discussion ended, .An' they got up from the ground, An' someone fetched a bottle out And kindly passed it round; An' we drank to Jack's religion In a solemn sort of way, An' the spread of infidelity Was checked in camp that day."
"Captain" Naegely and the Lumber-jacks
In the good old lumbering days of the seventies and eighties, when all was bustle and activity on the river, the "red sash brigade" of lumber-jacks was one of the picturesque features of the border towns. Upon breaking up of the lumber camps in the Spring, these hardy woodsmen came to town in droves, bedecked in Mackinaw coats of many colors, red sashes, pacs and hurons, and with large rolls of money, the earnings of a Winter's work, which they spent freely in revelry and dissipation. Saginaw was a "wide open" town, and welcomed the reckless woodsmen with open arms, a condition which was exactly to their liking, and they did just about as they pleased. Some lumbermen, however, made their homes here, working in the mills in Summer and in the pineries in Winter.
On quitting the camp the lumber-jacks were paid off in "camp orders" drawn on the lumber company, for the net amount due each one, and were payable at the company's office in the Saginaws. No money circulated in the camps, but the simple wants of the men, such as heavy, warm clothing worn in the woods, pacs, tobacco and pipes were supplied them from the company stores and charged to their account. Beyond these necessities there
408
HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
was no way of spending money in the depths of the forest, and the men who stuck to the camp through the long Winter, came out with orders drawn for two to three hundred dollars, or even more.
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