USA > Michigan > Saginaw County > History of Saginaw County, Michigan; historical, commercial, biographical, Volume II > Part 48
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To send competent and trustworthy land lookers through the reservation and pick out the choicest timber was the next move. Then the shrewd lawyer, with this information and the official list of reserves, checked up with it, did the rest. Ile knew many of the Indians personally, and it was not a difficult matter to get them "feeling good," and then by offering them the necessities of savage life they craved, to induce them to sign away their timber rights.
When the truth was known and the story told, the whole affair was regarded as a huge joke on the other lumbermen, who were thus compelled to take the "leavings.'
In speaking of the good old lumbering days on the river. O. E. Else- more, one of the prominent log scalers and boom men of the time, recently said: "The famous cork pine of the Cass was indeed a wonderful timber, but some equally as good, though in small lots, was found on the Tittaba- wassee and tributaries. 1 well remember one fine tract near Red Keg (Averill), which cut twenty-seven million feet of logs to a section ; and one
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THE LUMBER INDUSTRY
acre of especially fine trees, which I had measured and staked off, was cut and skidded separately to satisfy my curiosity. This one acre scaled more than one hundred thousand feet of logs, some of which ran two to the thousand, a record which has seldom been equalled.
"I came to Saginaw in 1867 and went to work on the old Huron boom in the Cass River. It was a busy stream in those days, and from scaler 1 advanced to the position of foreman of the boom, which I held for thirteen years. The boom company was composed of such men as Sears & Holland, N. B. Bradley, Bundy, Brown & Little, Shaw & Williams, Edwin Eddy. Ketcham & Company. Avery & Murphy, Charles K. Eddy, James Tolbert and others. Those were great days. The memorable forest fires of October. 1871, destroyed a vast quantity of valuable timber, and in order to save that which had been killed, but not burned, the logging operations the following winter were on a big scale. As a result the logs rafted and delivered to the mill booms from the Cass, in 1872. reached a total of one hundred and four million feet, the greatest in its history. The following year the production fell off to about fifty-six million feet, and soon dwindled to fifteen or twenty million. By 1885 the pine and hemlock timber on this stream, including a territory many miles back on both sides, was entirely exhausted, though small rafts amounting in the aggregate from one and a half to five million feet, came down for several years after.
"The Saginaw Valley lumbermen, as a whole, were as honest and straightforward a lot of business men as you would find anywhere; but, since you ask it, I will say that they all were looking after their own best interests. This sometimes resulted in coups, misunderstandings and hard feelings. No timber was stolen outright-it was too cheap for such tactics, but the timber itself was sometimes purloined and the loss not discovered by the owner for several years. In cutting a quarter or an eighth section here, or a quarter in an adjoining section, or another tract some dis- tance away, which belonged to the operator, he was careful, you may be sure, in the absence of very definite lines, to get all the timber belonging to him, and if his cut extended well over on the land of his neighbor there was no one there to dispute or stop him, and he got away with it. Some men grew rich, I have no doubt, in following this practice, but it was not so universal as was at one time supposed. Wealth came easily to energetic inen of ability and capital, and it was not necessary to encroach on the rights of others to gain a fortune. It was rather the traits of integrity. per- severance and hard labor which brought wealth to our lumbermen."
SEEMANN ILITER
THE TITTABAWASSEE AT RIVERSIDE PARK
CHAPTER XVII THE SALT INDUSTRY
An Essential Element of Life - Doctor Houghton Makes Early Discoveries - The State Bores for Salt - Failure of the Project - Granting a Bounty on Salt - Incor- poration of the First Salt Company - Erection of the First Salt Block - United with the Lumber Industry - Repeal of the Bounty Law - The State Reaps the Benefits - Purity of Saginaw Salt - Early Methods of Manufacture - Rapid Development of the Industry - Difficulties Beset the Manufacturers - Formation of the Saginaw & Bay Salt Company - The State Salt Inspection - Michigan Salt Company - Decline of Salt Production - Economies of Modern Salt Making-Utilization of Exhaust Steam- The Wilcox Automatic Rakes - Working Up the By-Products - Salt Production.
F ROM its being one of the usual and necessary constituents of food and a component part of the blood, salt is an essential element of life, while the enormous consumption and variety of purposes to which it is applied in manufacturing operations, invests its history with a peculiar interest. In consequence of the great demand in the economy of human life, constant exertions have been made, both by public and private enter- prise, to devise new sources for its production, either as a rock salt or in the form of salt brine.
Salt also possesses an element of romance. The mining of it has been carried on in Austria for centuries, the mines in the wonderful salt country around Ischl being show places, through which tourists are conducted for a fee. In the valley of the Vistula, in Austrian Poland, there is an under- ground city hewn from rock salt. It was started a thousand or more years ago, and now has winding streets, railway stations, churches, restaurants and other features, both civil and industrial, of a prosperous community.
Doctor Houghton Makes Early Discoveries
Although the Saginaw Valley and a large portion of Lower Michigan is underlaid with an immense bed of rock salt, of inexhaustible proportions, which might be and indeed has been mined, the economical production of salt in this State, as at other points in the Middle West, is by the simple reduction of resulting brines. As early as 1837 Doctor Douglas Houghton, the State geologist, in his first report on the subject of brine springs, speaks of one at the mouth of Salt River :
"On the Tittabawassee River, in Midland County, numerous indi- cations of the existence of brine springs were noticed, extending from near the mouth of Chippewa River as far as I ascended the former stream, being a few miles above the mouth of Salt River. Upon either side of the Tittabawassee River, between the points noted, small pools of brackish water were observed, as also, occasionally, springs discharg- ing a similar water in small quantities; and although an examination showed the waters to contain large quantities of the salts of lime, and occasionally of iron, they were never destitute of more or less salt.
"Springs of a more decided character occur in the vicinity of the mouth of Salt River. The first observed occurs in the stream near the right bank of the Tittabawassee, a little below Salt River, *** and was found by actual measurement to discharge abont seventy gallons of water per hour. Nearly a mile above this spring upon the same bank, and elevated from eight to ten feet above the water of the river, is a
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THE SALT INDUSTRY
second spring, discharging a somewhat larger quantity of water. Near by, but at a greater elevation, several small springs of brackish water were seen issuing from the sloping bank of the river, which, upon examination, were found to contain a notable quantity of salt.
"The quantity of water discharged from these springs is small, but when considered in connection with those already noticed, they become matters of considerable interest, since they serve to show that the salines are not confined to one or two springs, but are widely dispersed over a large district of country. Brine springs are known to exist near the mouths of Flint and Cass Rivers in Saginaw County; but they occur in a flat country and the unfavorable season compelled me to defer examin- ing them until some future time."
In commenting on this report, Stevens T. Mason, the first governor of Michigan, in his message of January 4, 1838, to the Legislature, says :
"The examination of the saline springs has been carried so far as to render it certain that we possess an extensive salt region, and that, with but a comparatively trifling expenditure, we shall be enabled to manu- facture salt in sufficient quantities not only for home consumption, but that it must become an article of extensive export. The whole number of salines granted by the Act of Congress have not as yet been located, in consequence of a want of time to examine the northern region of the State; but such a number have been secured as to justify the Legis- lature in authorizing preparatory measures for bringing them to public use."
In accordance with the recommendation contained in the governor's message, the Legislature, by act approved March 4, 1838, directed the State geologist to commence boring for salt as soon as practicable at one or more of the State salt springs. He was authorized to employ a chief assistant well skilled in the practice of salt-boring, and other assistants as might be neces- sary, appropriating a sum not exceeding three thousand dollars to defray the expenses, to be paid out of the internal improvement fund. The geologist accordingly visited the principal salt wells of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia, with a view of availing himself of the most recent improvements in the method of conducting the work.
The salt springs of New York were so differently situated that a satis- factory comparison with them could not be instituted, on which point he said :
"Any attempt to improve the water of our own springs upon the plan there pursued, would most assuredly prove valueless. The brine springs of our State, like those of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. emanate from a rock which lies deep, being covered with a mass of earthy matter, which it is necessary to penetrate. But the appearance of salt springs at the surface is of itself far from being evidence of water below. It is only a single link in the chain of facts."
The State Bores for Salt
Two points were selected for test wells; one on the Grand River about three miles below the village of Grand Rapids, and the other on the Tittaba- wassee, at the mouth of Salt River. The appropriation for this purpose was quickly expended in preliminary work, the country roundabout being a forest wilderness ; but the following year the Legislature directed the geologist to continue the improvements, and appropriated fifteen thousand dollars to defray the expenses thereof.
In speaking of the well at the Tittabawassee River, Doctor Houghton in his annual report says :
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
-
SALT BLOCK AND MILL BOOM
THE LOG END OF SAW MILL
"In continuing the shaft commenced at this place much difficulty has been encountered from the influx of water : but the condition is such that this difficulty may now be easily overcome by properly sinking tubes. All is in readiness to proceed with rapidity, and the whole outlay for materials having been incurred, the remaining expense of completing the work will be comparatively small.
"At a little less than fifty feet a continuous vein of salt water was opened, but so intermixed with veins of fresh water as to make it im- possible to determine the absolute quantity of saline matter contained in it. *** Although this water is not of sufficient strength to admit of its economical use for the manufacture of salt. it nevertheless serves to add confidence to the hope before expressed, of eventual success in obtaining the object sought. if the plan proposed be carried out."
The work at that time was suspended because the moneys appropriated could not be realized ; and the report of the select committee called attention to the fact that seventy-two sections of land, amounting to more than five thousand acres which, apart from the special value in consequence of the salt springs, were worth five dollars an acre, must be regarded as a gift from the United States, in consideration of the testing of their value for the pro- duction of salt. "Your committee are fully aware of the opinion." the report reads, "that the prospects of success, offered by a continuance of the improve- ments in progress, are such as not only to warrant their continuance. but also that the best interests of the State demand it."
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THE SALT INDUSTRY
By act of March 30, 1840, the Legislature appropriated five thousand dollars for the improvements at the salt springs on the Grand River, and a like amount on those on the Tittabawassee. Under this act a contract was made with Ira T. Farrand, by which he agreed to sink the shaft upon the State salt lands at Tittabawassee to the rock beneath. and a well in said rock to the depth of three hundred feet from the surface, the price to be seventeen dollars per foot for the first fifty feet ; and sixteen dollars per running foot for the remaining two hundred and fifty feet : and in addition the State was to pay for the tubing if any be used. The contract was confirmed on March 16. 1841, and the work, which for eighteen months had been suspended, was speedily resumed.
At the mouth of Salt River, where the earth-boring was originally estimated at one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet, after nine months of continuous labor the contractor had only been able to reach a depth of one hundred and thirty-nine feet. The results were disappointing, but the geolo- gist restates the opinion that to obtain water at maximum strength the shaft should be sunk to a depth of at least six hundred feet, and recommends that the well be completed at an early day.
Failure of the State Project
An appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars was approved February 14. 1842, to be expended upon the two wells already commenced; but further attempts to obtain water possessing qualities suitable for making salt proved unsuccessful. The salt lands of the State were then platted into lots and leased with the right to manufacture salt, provided that at least four cents per bushel of fifty-six pounds be paid to the State for the water. No further progress was made at the springs on the Tittabawassee, except to keep the machinery in repair ; and some doubt was entertained as to the validity of the title of the State to the land where the salt well was commenced.
The foregoing facts, comprising the principal action of the State toward the development of the salt springs in the Saginaw Valley, prior to 1859, were embodied in a paper prepared by the late William L. Webber, and read before the State Pioneer Society, February 2. 1881. The paper was honored by publication in the Michigan Pioneer Collections. Vol. IV. pp 13-22.
Granting a State Bounty on Salt.
In 1859, some citizens of Grand Rapids applied to the State Legislature for an appropriation of ten thousand dollars to be used for further testing the question of the existence of salt at the Grand River well. There was no proposition for continuing the experiment in the Saginaw Valley, and. as the State treasury had no great surplus, the Legislature would not make an appropriation to be applied merely for experiment. Knowing this fact, a few prominent men of East Saginaw having faith in salt, met at the office of Charles B. Mott, on January 26, 1859, and after a general discussion of the whole matter appointed a committee, consisting of Norman Little. Morgan L. Gage. Doctor George A. Lothrop and William L. Webber, with instruc. tions to petition the Legislature for such aid as in the opinion of the committee the Legislature would be most likely to grant.
The committee believed it would be useless to ask for a money appropri- ation, but it was thought probable that a bounty would be granted contingent upon success. A petition to that effect was duly prepared and sent forward, and a bill proposing a bounty of ten cents on each burrel of salt made was sent to James Birney, then representing the Saginaw district in the Senate, to be presented to that body. The Legislature seemed to regard it as a harmless bill, and by way of ridicule some member moved to make the bounty ten cents a bushel, equivalent to fifty cents a barrel. Willing to
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
carry out the joke, the Legislature passed the bill in that form, and it was aproved February 15, 1859. The act as passed also exempted from taxation all property used in the business of manufacturing salt.
Incorporation of the First Salt Company
Encouraged by this act of the Legislature, and with no more doubt that the State would in good faith observe and keep its promises than that it would ultimately pay its bonds, the enterprising men of East Saginaw, including Jesse Hoyt, of New York, formed themselves into a corporation under the general manufacturing law as the "East Saginaw Salt Manu- facturing Company," with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars, consisting of two thousand shares of twenty-five dollars each. The whole amount was subscribed in two days and the articles of association were signed on April 16, 1859.
The men to whom the Saginaw Valley and the State are indebted for the discovery of brine, and to whose risk and expense this industry, which proved of such great value, was created, were William L. P. Little, Webber & Wheeler, James L. Ketcham, George A. Lathrop, Dwight G. Holland, Moses B. lless, Alexander English, John F. Driggs, William J. Bartow, William F. Glasby. Jesse lloyt, Charles B. Mott, Henry C. Potter, Chester B. Jones and John P. Derby, each of whom subscribed for one hundred and twenty shares of the capital stock. William C. Yawkey and George W. Merrill each took forty shares; D. W. C. Gage and O. P. Burt twenty shares each ; and Chauncey II. Gage and Perry Joslin ten shares each. Doctor George A. Lathrop was elected president of the company, W. L. P. Little, treasurer, and William L. Webber, secretary ; and these officers, with Messrs. Mott, Ketcham, Hess, Potter, Merrill and Glasby, comprised the board of directors.
Organization having been perfected. Jesse Hoyt tendered the use of ten acres of land near the bank of the river for the boring of an experimental well, with an option in case of success to purchase the same at an agreed price. The location selected was north of Washington Street and just below the site of Carlisle's tannery. None of the men connected with the enter- prise had any knowledge of the geological formation of the valley, or any experience concerning the boring of salt wells, so a committee, consisting of George W. Merrill and Stephen R. Kirby, was appointed to visit the Onon- daga salt wells in the State of New York, and learn what buildings, machinery and tools were necessary for the boring of the well.
After a thorough investigation of the matter by these practical mechanics, some of the tools and equipment required for the work were purchased at Syracuse and shipped by way of the Erie Canal and the lakes to Saginaw. In due course the work was commenced by the erection of a drill house, an engine was procured and the machinery set up and put in operation under the direction of Sanford Keeler, then a young engineer on the river. Other necessary tools and appliances were made or purchased. tubing for the earth boring was secured and the well begun.
Soon after the work was well under way, Mr. Kirby, who had general charge of the enterprise, was called to the West to look after some of the Hoyt interests, and the direction of affairs and the whole responsibility of carrying on the operations devolved upon Mr. Keeler. He was equal, how- ever, to every emergency, and the results obtained were due very largely to his ability and perseverance. The first well bored was four inches in diameter, carried through a layer of soil ninety-two feet in thickness, at which point a brown sand rock was encountered. From that the boring continued down through alternate strata of rock to a depth of six hundred and thirty- three feet, terminating in a fine sandstone known as salt rock.
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Sanford Kepler Who Drilled the First Salt Well
George W. Merrill Who Made Part of the Machinery
Stephen R. Kirby Who Planned the Operations TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF SALT
The want of definite knowledge of the geological formations delayed the operations considerably. At Onondaga. the wells were carried down only to the salt rock, but here it was found necessary to penetrate the saline deposit ; and in doing this a new difficulty arose. The drills which had been used in boring were not suited to working in salt rock, they would wear dull very quickly and then stick and break, on one occasion requiring incessant labor for three weeks to dislodge the parts and remove the fragments, so that operations could be resumed. On account of these delays, which taxed the patience and ingenuity of the young engineer, it was not until February 7, 1860, that the work on the well was completed; nor until that date did the board of directors declare the experiment a success.
On the ninth of February public announcement was made of the dis- covery of brine of sufficient strength for commercial reduction to salt, and as stated in the Courier of that date, the "news struck the community like an electric shock." In their report to the stockholders the directors said :
"We have been aware of your natural anxiety for information during the progress of the work, but the board of directors at an early day adopted the policy of studiously withholding the facts developed from time to time, however encouraging, lest they might excite hope which the final results would not justify. We are happy now to assure you that Saginaw possesses salt water second in strength and purity, and we believe in quantity, to none in the United States."
Erection of the First Salt Block
Greatly enthused over the success of their experiments, the company at once proceeded to the erection of works for the manufacture of salt. con- sisting of two kettle blocks after the manner of those in use at Syracuse. Cord wood was used for fuel, and the manufacture commenced in the latter part of June, 1800. The production the first year was ten thousand seven hundred and twenty-two barrels of salt, consisting of five bushels each ; and
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
in the second year-July 1, 1861, to July 1, 1862, the production of this com- pany alone was thirty-two thousand two hundred and fifty barrels. As soon as the success of this experiment was thoroughly demonstrated, other companies were formed and wells commenced at various points on Saginaw River. In five years the production had reached five hundred and twenty- nine thousand barrels ; and in 1880-twenty years after the discovery of brine -the manufacture was two million six hundred seventy-eight thousand three hundred and eighty-six barrels, being something over thirteen million bushels of salt.
Experience demonstrated that the mode first adopted for the manu- facture was not calculated to produce the best economical results. The East Saginaw Salt Company estimated that the wood used in 1862 cost twenty-five and a half cents for each barrel of salt made, and that each cord of wood used in the kettle blocks gave a product of about seven barrels of salt. Cord wood at that time could be procured at about one dollar and seventy-five cents per cord of average quality, but soon after the manufacture of salt increased the price was raised to about three dollars a cord, which brought the cost of fuel to about fifty cents a barrel of salt.
The Salt and Lumber Industries United
Saginaw River was then lined with saw mills producing vast quantities of sawdust and slabs, which could be utilized as fuel, far in excess of that required for the use of the mills. It was soon discovered that the quality of the brine was such that evaporation in vats and pans was more econom- ically accomplished than in kettles. The heat in the exhaust steam of the saw mills, it was also found, could be utilized for this purpose; and by combining the two manufactures, salt and lumber, the fuel for the former could be obtained practically without cost. Thus the two industries were united, or rather, salt manufacture was largely developed by the lumber business. For the production of salt in 1880 the saving in fuel alone was one and a quarter million dollars, and the consumer received the benefit of this saving. In 1870 the average price of salt at Saginaw was one dollar and thirty-two cents per barrel, but ten years later it had dropped to seventy-five cents per barrel, or fifteen cents a bushel, at which price no one could manufacture salt in kettles without loss.
Repeal of the Salt Bounty Law
The Legislature of Michigan, having passed the salt bounty bill provid- ing for a bounty five times greater than was asked or desired, with the object of encouraging private enterprise of a measure, in which public experiment had signally failed, soon discovered its mistake, and at its session of 1861 repealed the act absolutely. The result was that the East Saginaw Salt Manufacturing Company, at whose risk and expense this great industry was discovered and developed, received from the State as a bounty only the sum of thirty-one hundred and seventy-four dollars, which was paid by a compulsory writ from the Supreme Court. The payment was but a trifling compensation for the losses incident to the making of the discovery of brine. and testing all the experimental questions in the manufacture of salt, com- peting, meanwhile, for the market with a rival so strong as the Onondaga Salt Association which, to cripple the Saginaw industry, sold salt in com- petition at one dollar a barrel at the lake ports, when their retail price at Syracuse was two dollars and thirty-five cents a barrel.
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