USA > Michigan > Genesee County > Flint > The book of the golden jubilee of Flint, Michigan 1855-1905. Published under the auspices of the Executive committee of the golden jubilee and old homecoming reunion > Part 7
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ALL ROAD CROSSING k. DOTTOR THE LARS
OLD FLINT-LOOKING NORTH-SAGINAW STREET BRIDGE.
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often but once a year. Not infrequently a season's crop was brought from down Saginaw way in canoes to be ground at this mill. It was a journey of several days duration, and of great difficulty, but always a period of vacation for the farmer or his boys, giving them a release from the steady grind of pioneering and a little outlook upon the world. A sawmill had been in operation here since 1833 or 1834, and a little industrial center was created. There is poetry in the thought that the soil, whose sturdy trees had been turned into settlers' homes at this mill, offered now its second fruitage, that the expanding activities of the embryo city might convert it into sustenance for the occupants of those homes. It may be that as time passed on the grinding business became more profitable. for the grist mill continued in existence many years, while the saw mill became at least secondary in importance. The grist mill passed through several ownerships, increasing in capacity and importance as the country became more productive until it reached its greatest activity under the management of Bur- roughs & Pierson during the years 1875 to 1885. At the saw mill on the Thread the first raft of timber ever floated on the Flint river was cut. It was hauled to the river a mile away, and floated down stream to build a settler's home. The log supply for this mill came from what is now the fourth ward of the city, where a fine, but isolated body of pine, naturally gave the section the name of Pinery. To the saw mill of Grand Blanc and the saw and grist mills of the Thread then, belong the distinction of marking the beginning of manufac- turing in Flint. The next saw mill, like the first, was erected to supply the demands of settlers, and in passing it might be well to say that lumbering as a commercial enterprise was not undertaken in Flint until well along in the fifties, and it was still ten years later before it was accorded the dignity of recog.
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nition as a manufacturing institution, and in the statistics of the world's productions. This second mill was located on the south bank of the Flint river, near the site of the present Grand Trunk passenger station, and was operated by water power. It, like the grist mill on the Thread, marked the commencing of a career of splendid manufacturing activity in following years.
In 1844 there came to the village Alexander Ward, a brick maker. He had learned of the promising settlement and of the progressiveness of the settlers who were already build. ing homes of manufactured lumber, instead of logs and clay, and he came to supply the brick for their chimneys and their foundations. His operations, and those of his sons and appren- tices, have made a continuous history in that industry down to the present time. John Zimmerman, whose yard is still in commission, was an apprentice of Ward's, and was then a German lad, just over, and unable to speak a word of English. Ward's brick-making first used clay along the borders of the Thread Creek at the head of Church street, but later he worked over many blocks on both sides of Saginaw street, from Eighth street south. It has been a most important industry, and played no insignificant part in the building of the city. Many large stores, schools, churches, homes and factories are monu- ments to this line of manufacturing-in fact, are doubly monu- mental. They are silently eloquent of prosperity; perhaps from lumber, once Flint's regnant industry; perhaps from merchandising, and the good merchant is indispensable to the good manufacturer ; perhaps from agriculture, for nowhere has Mother Earth been more bountiful than in her gifts to this community, but always standing for an industry that from the first has marched forward hand in hand with progress in the transition from hamlet to village and to city. Brick making
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as a trade, or industry, has developed and changed as time has moved on, and is now taking a new lease of life in the use of cement. If the experiments of the present demonstrate its perfection, the sandstone or cement brick, now manufactured in Flint, may take up the work of recording in a monumental way the successes of the future in whatever direction they may point, and as well mark the advance and success of the brick- maker's art.
At one time the manufacture of boots was a considerable industry here, but it was made to suffer by reason of the pros- perity of other localities where this industry has become centralized. It had its influences, however, and has left its mark of success as a legacy to the city of to-day and the future. Money accumulated in this trade became active in other lines of manufacture or building, and development marched on. Reuben McCreery, Augustus Knight, Abram Barker, Royal C. Ripley, John Quigley and John Delbridge were most prominently connected with this industry. They, like the lumberman, the miller and the brickinaker, came here to care for the needs of the pioneer settlers. In 1840 and 1850 shoe stores did not keep a record of the sizes of their customers' feet and shoe them on a telephone order by a uniformed delivery service. In those days boots and shoes were not articles of commerce, but of manufacture, and the stores could not supply the call for footwear. The customer was sent to the neighboring shoe shop to leave an order, and a measure. For men, the product would be cowhide or calfskin boots, and for women bootees. As the population of the village and county grew, so grew the boot factories until at the height of the industry this village had five or six shops, not then dig- nified by the name of factories, and from fifty to seventy-five employees steadily occupied in the making of boots and shoes
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to measure. Akin to this production was that of the leather from which the boots were made, and, while not a Flint indus- try, it was installed by Flint capital and directed by Flint energy. The greater part of the leather for all the boot work of this section was made by Barker & Ripley in a tannery - which they operated at Vassar, in the heart of the hemlock territory. Their product was largely cowhide and calfskin for the factory purposes, but there was a surplus over local demands left in the rough and shipped East from Flint after there were shipping facilities. This industry contributed to Flint's material prosperity and figured in the volume of its output.
The proper conception of a mowing machine is, that it is a product of an enormous factory, and the entire world is sup- plied from a few such factories. The pioneers had little help from these machines because of their imperfection, their cost, or the inability to use them in the virgin stump land. At one time, however, mowers were made here in the old Genesee Iron Works, then owned and operated by Hakes & Hawley. This industry was started in the early forties by Goff & Smith. Their contribution to the activities of the village was along agricultural lines in making tools for tilling the soil and in caring for such machine work as the few mills then in operation required. Their first great achievement was the construction of a steam engine for their own use, and the starting of this power plant in 1848 was marked almost by a civic holiday. Prior to this time there was only one small steam engine in all this section-that operating a pail and tub factory owned by Elias Williams, near the river bank and about where the big Crapo saw mill was afterwards located. The Genesee Iron Works did a great volume of busi- ness as time went on. Their operations advanced and receded
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largely with the lumbering activities to which, in a machine shop way, they allied themselves. There was a period of inac- tivity for a few years following 1878, and then the plant came into the hands of Hurd & McCorkle, the present owners. They combined it with a similar plant organized by Thomas Warren, and are doing a successful machine shop business to-day. This industry served a vastly important part in pioneer development. It was as necessary to the farmer as the tools it made for him, and as necessary to the miller or sawyer as the mill stones or saws for which it furnished repairs. It has turned out good work, good mechanics and good citizens. With it may be classed the shop of A. Culver, whose plows, cultivators, rollers and such tools were not, perhaps, the brilliantly painted and polished implements of to-day, but they obliterated the Indian tracks with the turned furrows, and they prepared the stump-strewn land for the waving curtain of golden grain. Rev. John McAlister, with his wagon shop, was equally necessary to our pioneer develop- ment, for the pioneer's product must be hauled to the market, and perhaps he took home some furniture for his house from the furniture shops of David Foote or George W. Hill, who prospered and added to the sum total of early industrial opera- tions before furniture centers became actualities. Perhaps the early farmer brought on his load of grain to the grist mill, a few fleeces of wool. Not far from the Thread grist mill was a small wool carding machine operated by water power, For years it carded all the wool of this section, and the product was taken home to the women who spun it into yarn, and possibly wove it into the native homespun of the pioneer. The march of time and improvements afterwards brought machine manufactured cloths to the merchants' shelves, and the house- keeper's time could better be devoted to other domestic accom-
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plishments, so that the carding machine faded away. But wool still grew and became each year a more important item in the wealth producing elements of the county. It more than supplied the demands of the people of the community, and had to seek other markets, and it cost a goodly share of the profit to reach that market. Years passed with the supply constantly increasing, and the demand for woolen goods making an attractive price for the raw material. History almost seems to contradict the old saying, "Time and tide wait for no man." Years went by, and the call for a local market was still insist- ent; the wool kept piling up and time waited for Oren Stone to appear. The time, the opportunity and the man of force and nerve and faith combined the elements to inaugurate a business that turned into domestic channels profits that had hitherto been dissipated in seeking a market, and developed an organization that made men, and homes, and citizens. The experiences of this industry were not always rosy, but they were always forward and of the persevering character that knew nothing but success. For many years Mr. W. A. Atwood was associated with Mr. Stone, and the business devel- oped to such an extent that it required far more than the local product of wool, and it appeared in the markets of the world as a buyer, as well as a seller, and carried to all quarters the name of Flint. That enduring foundation has sustained a commercial superstructure that to-day is larger and greater than ever, and a generous contributor to the sum total of Flint's industrial activities.
In an ever widening circle round the village burned the fires of logs and brush that the pioneers and farmers were clearing from the land of their chosen homes. Every fire attracted commercial attention, and many teams and men gathered up the ashes of those funeral pyres of virgin forests.
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In the village were asheries shipping quantities of potash and pearl ash to Eastern markets. The returns in money were very generous, and contributed to the capital that started the city on its prosperous career. The Flint River ran many miles up into great areas of untouched forest, and the trapper was a figure in the development. All the year, but more especially in winter, the hardy woodsman tramped or canoed up the river into the gloomy forest setting traps, and down the river gath- ering the harvest of peltry. In this trade the Indian was pre- eminent, but the pale face was stealing his craft. Flint was the laboratory of the industry, where the furs were turned into money, the money into lands, and the lands multiplied it into wealth for the community.
Co-incident with the substitution of lumber for logs ir house building came the industry of the planing mill to dress the lumber and to make sash, doors and blinds, turning, cabi- net work, frames and scroll work. This has grown to be a business of splendid proportions in both a domestic and ship- ping character. The pioneer effort in this industry was almost in the nature of carpenter shop work, for it was started in a small room over the Genesee Iron Works by Merriman & Abernathy in 1846. A year or two later when the wonderful home made engine was supplying power for the machine shop, this firm bought some of its energy and belted it through the floor, enabling them to widen the scope of their operations. Thomas Newell was interested in this venture, and he formed the connecting link between the originators of the business and the present splendidly equipped plant of the Randall Lum- ber & Coal Co. Mr. Newell was for many years a partner of Mr. Randall's, who brought the business up to the present in a most capable and ever increasing manner. There must have been something of love of the work, or of the growing
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village, or of future prospects that held a firm clutch on the heart strings of this same Thomas Newell, for the alluring legends from California were tempting him to turn his steps westward. So strong were their influences that Mr. Newell in partnership with Mr. Thomas Warren, fully equipped them- selves with prairie schooner, team, camp and mining para- phernalia, and prepared to set out for the Golden West in 1849. The home ties proved too strong for severing, and the outfit was disposed of. Mr. Newell became more active in the lumber dressing business, and was sent East by his firm to purchase machinery for the expansion of the mill, and Mr. Warren started his machine shop. It will be proper in passing to mention that Mr. Warren was an inventor along mechanical lines, his greatest achievement being a steam engine governor. It was the most advanced mechanism of the kind up to that time, and the capacity of his shop was taxed to equip the numerous engines that were being made, or brought into the county during this developing period.
It is getting into the fifties. Flint is a village of consider- able importance. The two streams, the Thread and the Flint, were capable of developing power and were utilized. The grist mill was busy with the crops of steadily expanding culti- vated areas; the saw mills were beginning to produce more than the local requirements. These were the days of small things, and each locality supplied its own needs from its own resources, or made some substitution according as it had men of outreaching activity or ingenuity. Flint's mills made the flour and the lumber; its shops made the implements, wagons, shoes, furniture, brick, harness and kindred requirements, and there were no Broctons, Grand Rapids, Fall Rivers, South Bends, or similar centralized industrial places; nor were there factories then; they were shops, and all localities had their
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own. Settlers were pouring in South and West of this section. There was the main highway to the south, toward Detroit the remains of the military road north towards Saginaw, and the east and west road originally projected as a railroad when the State undertook a great work of internal improvement in 1837, but which became eventually the Northern Wagon Road. Trails, or newly made roads branched from these main arteries, and like the old caravan routes to the mercantile marts of the ancient East, these roads led thousands to Flint for lumber, native products or milling. The tavern and its stable adjunct were well nigh cosmopolitan places with the fur buyer or produce dealer from Detroit, or beyond, the set- tlers from down Ann Arbor, or over Lansing way, the land looker or home seeker from the East, making the ever chang- ing variety of stage coach arrivals. Flint was the terminus, and it was rare indeed that the inns were not full. The travel was becoming very important, and the demands upon Flint were of such a nature that quicker and easier transportation must be had. This period, therefore, saw the building of a plank road south through Grand Blanc to connect with the northern terminus of the Holly, Wayne & Monroe Railroad, at Holly; another to Fenton to connect with the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad, and the third to Saginaw making an outlet via the lakes. Capital was attracted to Flint from the East to take advantage of the many avenues of investment, and not infrequently was it the fact that Flint agents of East- ern moneyed men arranged to furnish funds for commercial operations in Saginaw and Bay City, then outposts of civiliza- tion, and principally important as shipping points for the lum- ber that was being manufactured in the surrounding forests.
The time for expansion had arrived. The knowledge of the resources of the country the possibilities, the men to
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accomplish things, the money had all awaited the ripening of events and all of these elements had been moving steadily toward this period. There were a few saw mills along the banks of the river, doing a small business, but there was no enormous output. What surplus was accumulated was hauled to Saginaw where there were shipping facilities, and where buyers for Eastern yards assembled cargoes from many simi- lar sources of supply and shipped them East by sailing vessels to Buffalo, and beyond via the Erie Canal. Albany was then the lumber distributing center of America and most of Michi- gan's forest product found its way there. Explorations had shown the great bodies of magnificent white pine forest in Lapeer and Tuscola Counties, and in the northwestern corner of Genesee county. The meanderings of the Flint River and its north and south branches made pathways into the very heart of all this wealth of timber, and seemed to invite it to come out from its solitude of years to the glamour of civiliza- tion, and add to the making of a new era. A. McFarlan, William Hamilton, H. H. Crapo, Begole-Fox & Co., J. B. Atwood & Co., were the chief owners of thousands of acres of timber lands along the banks of these streams, and from small beginnings they evolved an immense lumber business so that the city and surrounding country became dependent to a vast degree upon this industry. The original idea was to float all the logs to Saginaw for milling, but the nature of the river showed Flint to be pre-eminently the place for handling them. The saw mills could expand under the influ- ence of management, money and market, and the men in Flint possessed the first two of these elements and the further aggres- siveness of making an avenue to reach the market. The plank roads served for several years, but railroad facilities were imperative. They came because the men of Flint said they must
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come, and these men did their full share in promoting, capital- izing, and even operating. The first rail outlet was to Sagi- naw in 1862, followed something over a year later by the con- necting link between Flint and Holly, making an all rail route to the South and East. All this was accomplished during war times, and with the close of that tragedy came the leap in all kinds of commercial undertakings. Thoughts and ambi- tions and efforts could be centered on material domestic expan- sion, and all things pertaining to industrial Flint were ripe to take advantage of these conditions. Eight or ten mills had come into operation at various points along the river front and millions of feet of logs were being cut up in the forest sections, poured into the river and floated to Flint. The whole industrial atmosphere was surcharged with lumbering, and the ramifications of the industry were many and affected innu- merable interests. An army was gradually accumulated in the woods with which communication must be maintained, and to which supplies must be forwarded. There must be a plan and system for driving the logs from where the wood- men felled them, to the saw mills, resulting in the Flint River Boom Co. Another army gathered around the mills running machines, sorting, piling and shipping lumber. The selling force was by no means a small one; the accounting for all the business required another corps of helpers. So that several thousand men were attracted here and affiliated with this splen- did enterprise. They were added to the population of the town, and had to be provided with homes. Building flourished, attracting carpenters. They must needs eat and be clothed, so that stores multiplied, with their attendant proprietors and clerks. There was a steady train of wagons or sleighs hauling food stuffs into the woods for men and beasts, and the country around the city was the source of supply. Requirements of
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every sort were active, and every element of trade participated in the prosperity of lumber. The fame of Flint as a lumber center was wide, and buyers were stationed here to bid for the products of these mills, or arrange for special cuts that building requirements in any direction might demand. Earn- ings were good, and a splendid business training came to thou- sands of men who afterwards arrived at that stage where they took up and have carried on the stream of prosperity, that had its rise in the primitive lumbering days, swelled into the rush- ing, mighty flood of the seventies, and is now passing on in the deep, steady, strong current of a fixed and diversified industrial activity. Statistics are not particularly interesting, and the billions of feet of lumber cut in Flint count for little now except as leaving a legacy far more valuable than the com- puted price of all the forest products that have passed through Flint's gateways of commerce. That some of it weathered Cape Horn to fill orders in San Francisco, or sought a market in Europe or Asia, is a mere lesson in geography. Lumbering commenced to decline in the eighties; it was history in the nineties, but it left wealth in homes, property, mercantile enter- prises, schools, churches and, equal to all the rest, men-men who had been trained to meet emergencies, to accomplish things, to work out problems, and to succeed. It left women who had made homes, homes indeed; it left a society that was welded together by the unity of a common interest. A few asked the question, "What next?" and of a very truth for a year or two the destiny of Flint hung trembling in the balance. More went to work with energy to create "next." The charac- ter of lumbering changed, and for some years logs cut far to the North were hauled in by trainloads, tumbled into the river, to follow the pathway of their predecessors, up the gang and out in boards to waiting cars. Lumber cut in mills that
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had followed the receding pine northward was stopped off here, milled in planing mills and forwarded as a dressed product to the East. In the forests out of which GeneseG County was carved were great sections, or in mining terms. pockets of hard wood, and in the clearing process such came to Flint in vast quantities in the shape of bolts. To convert these into barrels, or barrel material, was another manufacturing interest, which lasted for some time after the pine lumbering had practically ceased, and was one of the many industries into which manufacturing business resolved itself as the supreme lumbering interests were dissolving into fragments. So the planing and stave mills superseded the saw mills, and the lum- ber workers were still in demand. Their earnings still swelled the sum total of domestic transactions; their families still formed part of the social body, and their children were grow- ing up for future commercial activities.
As the lumbering declined some of the operatives pur- chased farms for themselves in the opening and began work- ing out their own destinies. The agricultural resources of the locality had vastly increased as the cultivated areas enlarged and Flint was the market center. The Thread grist mill was at the high tide of its activity; had been re-built as a thor- oughly up-to-date merchant mill, and was buying all grain offered, milling it into flour and shipping it far and wide, The Genesee Flouring Mills had absorbed the attention of the Hamiltons that had formerly been devoted to the saw mill busi- ness, and this mill was also in the market for the grain of the locality and was distributing it as a manufactured product in all directions. Still another, the City Mills, came into com. mission because of the great agricultural resources, and the flour milling activities of the city went a long way toward keeping up the aggregate of business that might drop off by
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