History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.., Part 18

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Michigan > St Clair County > History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.. > Part 18

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WATER RESERVOIRS.

The small bodies of water, or lakelets, with which certain portions of St. Clair County are diversified, rest in depressions shaped in the layer of modified drift. The remarkable group of water fountains in the northwestern townships of the county, together with those in

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IHISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

the northeastern part of Oakland, continues through Livingston, Washtenaw and onward to the Lakes of Grattan, in Kent County. They are particularly scattered along the scarcely descending banks of the Huron. of Lake St. Clair, or the Clinton and its tributarios, and are strung like beads along these streams, many of them. probably, the ancient work of beavers. The lakelots of St. Clair County, as of the Lower Peninsula in general, are surrounded by gravelly, elevated shores on two or three sides, with frequently a low, marshy border fringing the remainder of the contour. As the streams which feed them are clear, the water of the lakes is limpid and healthful. though of the character known as hard. They furnish, there- fore, charming places of summer resort. The same species of fish and moffusks inhabit the different lakelets of the county, however disconnected. This fact prosents an interesting and difficult problem to the investigator of the origin of species. The most natural inference is that at a former period a general system of water communication existed among the various bodies of water in this part of the peninsula, and at this time one fanna extended through all its limits. A similar problem, but of a larger magnitude. is presented by the similar fannas inhabiting different rivers and lake systems, and especially when the different systems dis- charge into the sea at the different points, and their higher sources, as well as their valleys of discharge, are separated by elevations too great to admit the hypothesis of a general fresh water inundation in former times. It requires but a casual observation to become convinced that nearly all these lakelets have formerly been of larger size. The shore upon one or more sides is fre. quently low and sedgy, and stretches back over an expanse of marsh and aluvial land to a slop. ing, gravelly bank, which appears to have been the ancient contour of the lake or river expansion. The lowland between the ancient shore and the modern is composed of a bed of peat, gener- ally underfaid by a bed of mart. Beneath the marl may be found. in many cases, a deposit of blue, plastic clay, which forms a transition to the layer of modified drift. before described. Each of these deposits may have a thickness of a few inches or more, np to ten or twenty feet. That all these formations have been laid down from the flooded or Champlain period is evident; first, from their superposition on the modified drift; second, from the fact that the lake is performing in our own times, the same work as we see completed in the low-border marsh; third. from the gradual extension of many lake-border marshes, and the corresponding diminution of the areas of the lakes. The calcareous character of the water of these lakefots makes them a fitting abode for numerous species of lime-seereting molinsks. These animals eliminate the lime from the water and build it into the structure of their shells. Finally the moHusk dies and its shell falls to the bottom, where it undergoes disintegration into a white powder, or becomes buried in the progressing accumulation of such material. Another portion of the marly deposit forming in the bed of the lakes is probably derived from calcareous procip- itation directly from the lake water. Thus a bed of mart is forming over the whole bottom of the lake, in situations sufficiently protected and shallow to serve as the abode of shell making ani- mals. But on the leeward side, the immediate shore is the seat of a layer of peat. Bul- rushes lift their heads through water one or two feet deep. A little nearer the shore, flags may be seen, and still nearer. sconring rushes. On the immediate border of the land, willows and water-loving sedges hold a place, while farther back. other sedges and grasses take possession in varying proportions. This is the leeside of the lakes. Floating leaves. twigs and stems therefore find their way among the lake-side growths, and becoming entangled, sink and fall into gradual decay. More than this, each autumn's crop of dead vegetation, produced round the borders of these lakes, contributes to the accumulation of vegetable material, which gradu- ally changes into the condition of humus and peut. This is a work begun at the surface of the water. When the substance sinks, it overlies what the lake had hitherto accumulated. When the peat layer is first bogan. the previous accumulation is mart. and hence the well known order of superposition of these two deposits. The peat-bed grows Inkewarm as the continued formation of marl shallows the water. In the course of time, the actual seat of operations be- comes removed far from the ancient shore, and a broad marsh comes into existence, with peat everywhere at the surface and mart beneath. Almost the entire county may be considered an ancient luke site. yet in a reference here, the writer wishes to deal with the ponds of the county. which long years after the Champlain epoch, were farge sheets of water, as many existing

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

ponds have obviously been contracted from their ancient limits, as a little reflection makes it obvious that many lakes, once existing here have become quite extinct through the completion of the process of filling-up. It is probable that every marsh in the county marks the site of an ancient lake. Level as the surface of the water, which determined their limits and depth, not a few of them retain at some point vestiges of the lakes which they have displaced; and others exhibit all the transitions from a reeking and quaking bog to an alluvial meadow; while in nearly all cases ditching discloses the peaty, marly and clavey materials, in the order in which, under lake action, they are accumulating before our eyes along actual lake borders. The absence of any marked general inclination of the surface in our Peninsula, has made it the seat of an extraor- dinary number of small lakes, ancient and modern, and hence, also a region of small local marshes. Some of these may be found on almost every section of land; but the majority of them form meadow lands, or even tillable fields, and constitute the choicest patches in the farmer's possession. Many of these ancient lake sites, nevertheless, remain for the present nothing but swamps, and demand resolute ditching for their thorough reclamation, as is evidenced by the old cranberry marsh, so well remembered by the old settlers of Wayne, Macomb, St. Clair and Oakland.

MARSHES.

One of the geological features of the county was the floating fields in the neighborhood of Capac. So recently as 1862. this great muskeg was known to the people, and doubtless would exist to-day had not the industry of the German immigrants, and the watchfulness of the State reduced it to arable land. In 1866, Gov. Crapo appointed George A. Funston, Commissioner, and J. S. Kennefick. Engineer, to carry out the plan of the latter for the drainage of this swamp. After a series of leveling operations, ample fall was secured for the waters, and a rich soil brought into existence, where before was the quagmire.

A portion of these wastes may properly be termed wastes of ignorance. This ignorance does not belong exclusively to any one class of farmers; it attaches itself more or less to all. Our ignorance, however, is not always our fault. Many things are beyond the reach of human faculties; we never can know them. Some things which we are capable of understand- ing, we have never had an opportunity to learn; still it is true of every farmer that he might and would have known a great many things of which he is now ignorant, if he had only im- proved his opportunities as he ought to have done. The cultivation of the Capac Marsh is an evidence of progress in this direction. In August, 1875, this marsh, and the measures then taken to utilize it, were noticed. It comprises 2,200 acres, and is situated six miles northwest of Capac Village. It is owned by G. S. Parks, in company with three or four other business men, all of whom came from Wisconsin, where they have large investments in the culture of the cranberry. This company purchased the farm in 1874, and began large improvements. The part of the farm on which the berries are grown make a field of over 2,000 acres, the re- mainder being highlands, and in preparation for farming purposes. As is well known, cran- berries are grown on marshes and lowlands, which are covered with water a part of the year. The marsh is almost entirely surrounded with water, and one side is a chain of small lakes, which are skirted with narrow ridges, covered with beautiful groves on one bank, and heavy growths of timber on the other. Cranberries have for years grown on the marsh, but no ef- forts havo ever been made toward cultivating them. The work to be done in cultivating the vines is to simply supply the land with water at certain seasons of the year, and to drain it at others. When this is successfully accomplished, it is all that can be done, as the vines will, under proper circumstances, then take care of themselves. The first thing the proprietors did was to begin extensive ditelies on the marsh, to facilitate irrigation in the spring, and to drain off the water later in the season. A gang of workmen constructed a ditch around the margin of the swamp, eight fect in width, and over five miles in length. The work was easily aecom-

plished, as the soil was composed of vegetable matter, the surface being but little decaved and qnite rotten a foot from the surface. This vegetable matter was composed of the heavy growths of grass which have been growing and rotting for years. The men piled the soil on the outer bank, forming an embankment to hold the water when irrigation commences. The lakes around the marsh are much higher than the marsh itself, and with one of them this ditch con-

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

nects, thus securing an abundant supply of water, which is necessary to the successful culture of the berry. The ditch has a good outlet at the opposite end of the field. Several large ditches. a foot in depth, were made throughout the field to drain the surface after the berries set and begin to ripen. In 1873, the marsh was burned over, and since that time but few ber- ries have been picked. as the vines were killed. The field was subsequently covered with a thick growth of vines, which reached maturity sufficient to bear a heavy crop.

MAGNETIC WELLS.

The discovery of several wells of magnetic or magnetized water, has given rise to a novel theory. The fact that wells whose waters have magnetic properties do exist, is now generally conceded. That the discovery of these peculiar wells is confined to the central portion of the State is also well known, and the probability that they will always be limited to Michigan is, to the mind of every scientific man, a fixed fact. Let a person to whom this idea has occurred take the pains to glance at a map of this State, and he will be astonished at the resemblance which the outlines of the Lower Peninsula have to an ordinary magnet. The great lakes which surround it do, in fact, form an enormous horse-shoo magnet, with a proportionate current of electricity constantly circulating through those vast bodies of waters, and form the different poles of the magnet across the southern and central portions of the State, completely saturat- ing, as it were, the earth, air and water with this powerful agent. Science teaches us that when- over two bodies of matter assume certain positions to each other, a current of electricity is im- mediately formed, and the intensity of that current (other things being equal) will be in pro- portion to the size of the bodies brought in contact. Now. with Lake Michigan on the west, Lakes Huron and St. Clair and the Straits on the cast, united at the apex by a narrow strait. we have all the necessary qualifications to form a huge galvanic battery, and the conchision is inevitable. Again. electricity always secks the best conductors, and in its passage across the State the water, being a better conductor than either earth or air. is more highly charged. But the surface water, having its electricity constantly drawn off by surrounding objects, is on- fechled, while the lower strata are powerfully impregnated. On exposure to external influences this, however, gradually passes off, which accounts for persons not finding this quality in water which has been transported a distance from the wells

MINERAL WATERS.

The salt springs of this district result from an overflow of the great saliferous basin of the Peninsula. The wells at St. Clair were bored upon the thinning-out edge of this basin, almost. one degree of longitude southeast of the highest saturation point, and at a place where the brine would necessarily be diluted with surface water, or with that of subterranean rivers. Conse- quently the brine of Mount Clemens must be considered separately from that so prized by salt manufacturers, for the reason that it is a medicinal mineral water, rather than a common salt brine. The difficulties presented by this water in the manufacture of common salt therefrom. are due to the large quantity of defignoseent parts of calcium and magnesium existing in con nection with the chloride of sodium: but what it loses in this respect is more than compensated for by the large quantity of salts present. possessing in connection with the sulphureted hydro- gen, a decided medicinal effect. Chief among the active ingredients, in addition to those men- tioned, is iodine, an agent whose value has long been recognized by the medical profession.

The carbonated waters contain a quantity of soluble salts: the sulphur waters are of the most pronounced character. each impregnated with mineral substances, which must always render them of inestimable value to the people. It is said that the magnetic waters of the State are not themselves magnetic. but that marked magnetic phenomena are manifested in the vicin- ity of the wells-arising through induction from the earth. without regard to the waters; yot experiments indicate a power of excitation of magnetism possessed by these waters.

THE SALT SPRING OF 1797.

The Salt Spring, near the bank of Salt River, in the vicinity of which the squatters of 1797 located, was considered by them a most valuable property. This spring appeared in the

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

glen, close by the Plank Road bridge of later days-four miles from the mouth of the river. In a report tendered to Thomas Jefferson by Charles S. Jonett in 1804, this agent of the Govern- ment makes the following statement: "From experiments which have been made, I am justi- fied in saying that this spring deserves the publie attention. It was wrought some time by a couple of men, who, owing to their want of capital, were incapable of conducting the business on an advantageous plan. By these men I am assured that a quart of water did with then; turn ont a gill of salt, and in all their trials with greater quantities, it never failed to produce a like proportion. There is a sufficient quantity of water to supply works to any extent."

From a report made by Douglass Houghton in 1838 to the Legislature, the analysis of the brine, said to be so rich in its saline properties in the report of Jonett to Secretary Jefferson in 1804, was as follows :

ANALYSIS OF BRINE, SECTIONS 2 AND 11, CHESTERFIELD.

Specific gravity

1.0057

Chloride sodinm. .0.549

Chloride calcium. .0.013

Chloride magnesium. .0.037

Sulphate of lime. .0.015 Sulphate of magnesia

Carbonate of lime

.. 0.014 Compounds of iron .. .0.001

Other constituents. .

Total solid matter. 0.629

In 1863, D. C. Walker, of Capac, manufactured a small quantity of salt from water pro- duced by the well on his farm. The product was analyzed by Chemist S. P. Duffield, of De- troit, who pronounced the solid to be sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, chloride of cal- cium, and chloride of iodine.

In May, 1SS2, the Marine City Stave Company made a deep boring. Geologists are satisfied that the Michigan salt-rock has been struck at that point. The development of the well rests with the enterprising firm of which Crocket McElroy is the head. The success of the industry is only a matter of a short time.

SOIL.

On the plains or comparatively level portions of the county, the soil is of a sandy eharac- ter, with more vegetable mold in its composition than appears from a hasty examination. It is formed. for the most part, of decomposed or disintegrated sandstone. The granitic or azoie formation occurs upon the rivers and creeks, but terminates as a surface indication. near the confluence of the Black with the 'St. Clair. The soil on some of the knolls which skirt the rivers has a clayey character, which, when it comes to be cultivated, will be found to have stay- ing qualities that do not appertain to that of the country in the immediate neighborhood of Lake Huron. The particular drawback of the light and easily worked sandy soii, which usu- ally produces a good yield in return for the labor and dressing bestowed upon it, is its lack of power to resist the effects of a dry time. As the seasons in which there is a severe drought are not frequent, this does not seriously depreciate the value of this soil for agricultural purposes. The soil and climate of St. Clair generally is eminently adapted to the raising of small fruit- and berries, and as the railroads bring the markets so near our doors, this industry must con- tinue to increase until the crop becomes a very large one. There are several indigenous fruit- bearing shrubs which may one day be cultivated and produce a berry as superior to the present prodnet as the pippin excels the crab apple. There is also found in great profusion the hazel nut, awaiting man's fostering care. There is produced on this soil one or more varieties of wild hemp, and the milk weed (the inspissated juice of which becomes India rubber), grows in rank profusion wherever its seeds take root. Indeed, most of the soil in the county whatever geological parentage it owns, or whatever metamorphoses it may have gone through, is well adapted to the easy cultivation of its indigenous productions, and most others from a like lati- tude. The general surface appearance is attractive, being generally undulating enough to af- ford good draining, without being hilly, presenting a pleasing variety of groves of valuable timber and light openings, interspersed with stretches of marsh and meadow lands, beautifully undulated with gentle ascents and declivities, which swell away in the distance, forming many truly charming landscapes. But little if any is so uneven or hilly as to render it undesirable for agricultural purposes, and a large portion of the flat, marshy land which was originally considered worthless, has, at a trifling expense, been transformed into valuable meadows; while there are some 3,000 acres of peat marsh, having an inexhaustible supply of poat of a good

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

quality, ranging from six to twenty feet in depth, which may, in the not distant future, become a source of wealth to its owner. As to the character of the soil, it is unquestionably rich in the mineral constituents necessary to the production of good crops, but it requires to have a part of its production, or its equivalent, returned to its bosom every year. The amount of vegetable mold is not so abundant that one can go on cropping, generation after generation. without exhausting its fertility.

Some idea of the salubrity of the atmosphere and purity of the water may be formed from the healthfulness of the inhabitants. The pale face, sunken cheek, cadaverous countenance and hectie cough are seldom met with in this county. Butchers are patronized far more liber- ally than physicians. The unusual absence of disease in this county was noticed more particu- larly by the early settlers, from the fact that they anticipated the visitation of those bilious diseases so common in new countries, and yet failed to suffer much from malarial attacks.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL.

This county is rich in evidences of the presence here, at some remote period. of the race, long extinct, which is the delight of antiquarian research, and the object of curious consideration by all. The Mound-Builders have loft innumerable tumuli near the river and lakes. The mounds possess the varied forms peenfiar to this class of pre-historic works. Most of them are conical or oblong, but some are cruciform, while others resemble birds and animals. The age of the mounds is attested by the growth of huge trees on the summits, and by remains of immense trees thereon which have lived, died and decayed since the germ was first implanted in the up- turned soil by the ordering of that economy of Nature which is at once the source of admira- tion and marvel to the thoughtful minds. These mounds, like all others constructed by this mysterious people, are of surface soil, yet the immediate vicinity shows no disturbance of the surrounding alluvium. When, and how, and why were they built? Exceptionat ones on the heights at bends in the river, or at the foot of the lake, were perhaps for defense, some possi bly for tombs, as bones exhumed would indicate. Excavations usually yield little results, though sometimes aro found pieces of coarse pottery and rude implements. The county abounds in these antiquarian puzzles. The Indian found a home on both river and lake. At an early day, this district was a favorito resort for ducks, and also abounded in tish, something like the the St. Clair Flats of a few years ago. The facility with which food could be obtained induced the indolent savage to pitch his wigwam here. As late as a half a century ago, hundreds of Otchipwes and even visiting Menominees fared sumptuously on the wild rice and game of the region. Many Indian graves are still distinguishable by their decaying palings. The pio neers of fifty years ago remember the burial scenes and dance orgies of the tribes which were the final aboriginal occupants.

Records of the ohlen time are very interesting, and are not without their lessons of instruc. tion. By the light of the past. we follow in the footprints of the enterprising pioneer. We see him amid the labors and struggles necessary to convert the wilderness into a fruitful field. We sit by his cabin fire, partaking of his homely, but cheerfully granted fare, and listen to the accounts he gives of frontier life: of the dangers, trials, hardships, of himself and others, in their struggles to make for themselves homes in regions still unexplored, save by wandering Indians and wild beasts. Through these old records, we make our way along to the present. showing the mighty achievements of industry, the daring enterprise, the creative energy and untiring perseverance of the early pioneer. Following on in the path of progress and improve- ment. wo see once waste places rejoicing under the kindly care of the husbandman: beautiful farms are spread out before ns: villages and cities have arisen, as if by magic: common schools, academies and colleges have sprung up, wherein young and ardent minds may press forward in the acquisition of science: churches are built, and a Christian ministry sustained: the press is established: railroads are constructed, to bring the products of every clime, and the people from afar, to our doors. All this has been accomplished over ten thousand graves.

St. Clair County was one of the Pagigendamoirinaki, or great cometeries of the aborigines. Along the rivers and their tributary creeks, many mounds were found by the carly settlers-some few still exist-all offer interesting subject to the antiquarian of the present time. From time

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

to time, the searcher among the bones of the dead was rewarded by the discovery of one or other of the many articles placed in the earth with the dead. The number of mounds and character of human remains found in them, point ont the district as the necropolis of an extinct race. Stone hatchets and flint arrow-heads, unnumbered skeletons-all remain to tell of their coming and their stay, of their rise and fall.

The free copper found within the tumuli, from the open veins of the Superior and Iron Mountain Copper Mines, with all the modus operandi of ancient mining, such as ladders, levers, chisels and hammer-heads, discovered by the French explorers of the Northwest and the Mississippi, are conclusive proofs that a pre-historic people were civilized, and that many flour- ishing colonies were spread throughout the newly formed land. While yet the mammoth, the mastodon, and a hundred other animals, now only known by their gigantic fossil remains, guarded the eastern shore of the continent, as it were, against supposed invasions of the Tower- Builders, who went west from Babel: while yet the beautiful isles of the Antilles formed an integral portion of this continent, long years before the European Northman dreamed of setting forth on his voyage of discovery to Greenland, and certainly at a time when only a small portion of the American continent, north of latitude 45°, was reclaimed, in the midst of the great ice- encumbered waste, a pre-historic people lived and died upon the land which the American and French pioneers of St. Clair rescued from its wilderness state.

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History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.., Part 18

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co.
Number of Pages: 814