I am
more than grateful to Ethelwyn Wing whose prodding suggestions and helpful
criticism kept this story alive when my discouraged inclination was to let it
die; to Effie Fortune Stanford and Charlotte Leonardson who courageously read
through the typescript searching for errors (and found them); to Kathryn
Stanford, city librarian, and Agnes MacLaren of the Daily News staff who made
available to me old newspaper files; to Mabel Morse who brought me much
valuable material from the Smith-Morse family collection; to Rose D. Hawley,
curator of the Mason County Historical Society museum, who made available a
great deal of classified material; to Charles E. Cartier whose knowledge and
memory of lumbering in Mason County have proved highly valuable; to Dr. Charles
W. Brayman of Cedar Springs whose loan of his mother's diaries preserved an
outstanding record of pioneer days; to Miss Carrie Mears who loaned her
father's diaries for publication and to Mrs. Allen Williams who edited them; to
Jacob Lunde whose diorama has given a priceless record of lumbering days; and
to the members of pioneer families whose reminiscences have been exceedingly
helpful, among them: Flora Pierce Clark, David Gibbs, Karl Ashbacker and Ida
Ashbacker Grant; Ben Beaudreau, Hans Rasmussen, James H. Sawyer of Chicago,
Edith Dowland Hawkes, Bess LaBelle Sheldon, Daisy Marsh Reek, George Pomeroy,
Maria Hansen Daub, Virgil Fitch, Florence Fitch, Mrs. Charles Dahn and those
who have related reminiscences of their families in the meetings of the Mason
County Historical Society from which sources I have drawn freely.
SAND, SAWDUST AND SAW LOGS Lumber Days in Ludington
I have set myself the pleasant task of picturing some of
the scenes and recalling some of the people who walked the stage in the era of
the lumber mill and sailing ship. Then our lives were shaped by the roistering
lumber jack's echoing call of "timber-r-r," the roaring drive of pine
logs down the Pere Marquette River and the
noisy hum of saw mills. From memories that have remained with me, from
such information as I have been able to garner from old timers and the dusty
files of yellowed newspapers, I have pieced together this none-too-serious and
unconventional account of the region around Pere Marquette Lake. I have
attempted to make this record accurate, but
no doubt much that was important has faded from my memory or escaped my attention. None of my
sources is infallible. Such as it is, I submit this history of early
Mason County hoping it may be acceptable to those readers who enjoy the flavor of by-gone days.
About a half century after Columbus discovered the New
World, the bold French explorer, Jacques Cartier, anchored in the Bay of Gaspe
and claimed all the land back of it for his sovereign, Louis XIII. Cartier
named this region New France in America. A bit more than half a century later
James I of England established the boundaries of the Virginia colony to extend
"up into the land throughout from sea to sea west and northwest." James
called this vast region his Fifth Dominion. Thus the banners of two kings
floated at one time over the fair land of
which Mason County is a part.
But the Indian held possession.
Tribe fought tribe, the swaying pines grew
undisturbed and the tiny beaver, not knowing that his silky brown fur
was prized by kings, paddled into the placid streams to construct his dams. A
French fur trading company named the
Hundred Associates was the first to penetrate these green-black forests
of the Indian.
A
century after Cartier claimed the region, Samuel Champlain, governor of New
France, entrusted a young fur trader, Jean Nicolet, with the responsibility of
bringing together as many Indians "as could be notified by fleet
runners" to make a treaty which would give the King of France jurisdiction
over these vast hunting grounds. After a series of feasts and ceremonies,
Nicolet made a treaty with the Indians. Thus was established the Inner Empire
of Michil-Mackinac.
The
English Hudson's Bay Company soon followed. Raising their flag with their Latin
slogan, "a skin for a skin", they established their trading posts
irritatingly near the French. The worried French began erecting forts around
the English from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico. Soon bickerings began that led
to the long series of French and Indian wars in which the Indians were
generally allied with the French against the English.
The
long conflict became involved with the tremendous Seven Years' War in Europe.
When the conflict ended in 1763, France had been driven from the American
continent and English territory extended west to the Mississippi River. Beyond
lay Spanish territory—Louisiana.
Regardless
of the foreign flags waving above them the Indians carried on their own wars.
In the many conflicts the Iroquois drove the Chippewa, the Ottawa and the
Potawatomi westward to the shores of Lake Michigan. After a time these three
tribes formed a loose confederacy, though the Potawatomi sometimes warred
against the other two. In one of these conflicts the river now known as the
Pere Marquette, received the Indian name Not-a-pe-ka-gon, "river with
heads on sticks," following a battle between a tribe of Ottawa living
along its banks and a fierce band of Potawatomi from the south.
The conquering Potawatomi, in celebration of their victory and as a warning to all unfriendly tribes, severed the heads of their slain victims and erected the grim trophies on poles along the river edge. Nin-de-be-ke-tun-ning, "place of skulls", was the gruesome name given the Indian village on the south side of Pere Marquette Lake.
The
First White Men
The recorded history of Mason County did not begin with accounts of subduing Indians. Nicolet's treaty had opened a vast territory to the missionaries of his faith who, according to Bancroft, "went out with altars strapped to their backs, with a flask of communion wine and a packet of colored pictures of the saints" to rescue the souls of the savages. Their work had made this country safe for development when the white settlers arrived. The letters, diaries and reports—the Jesuit Relations-sent by these ardent missionaries to their superiors mark the beginning of recorded history of the Great Lakes region. The death of one of these courageous missionaries, Pere Jacques Marquette, begins the recorded history of the white man in Mason County.
On the
eighteenth of May, 1675, a weather-beaten, birch-bark canoe took shelter in the
shallow "river" that channeled the placid waters of Pere Marquette
Lake into the restless waters of Lake Michigan. Attending the dying priest,
prone on a rush mat in the bottom of the canoe, were his two voyageurs—
"donnes"—devout men of the church who gave their services to the
missionaries without pay—Jacques L'Argilier and Pierre Porteret. These three
white men were the first to visit this region so far recorded.
Marquette's faithful attendants hastily prepared a rude hut of saplings and bark, kindled a fire of driftwood, and bore the beloved missionary to this flimsy shelter on a lonely hill. Hours later the intrepid young priest, only thirty-eight years old, died. His sorrowing men buried his body on the desolate knoll, and over his grave placed a wooden cross.
Two
years later some of Marquette's followers returned and exhumed the precious
bones. With solemn ceremonial they were carried to the mission at St. Ignace
and enshrined. The rustic cross was left to mark the hallowed spot.
Nearly
half a century later Pierre Xavier de Charlevoix visited his fellow explorer's
death site and, recording the first description of the barren sandy region,
stated that the "river" was "no more than a brook" but that
it widened into a lake nearly two leagues in circuit, and that the river had
apparently cut through a great hummock. Today Charlevoix's sand-clogged "brook"
is known as the site of the old channel. The present channel is man-made. The
river proper, the former Not-a-pe-ka-gon, enters the lake on its eastern
border. Both lake and river bear the name of Pere Marquette.
Fur traders, fishermen and eventually permanent white settlers followed Charlevoix and found remnants of a weathered cross atop a sandy hill. Among these white visitors was William Quevillonwho came through here in 1835-6 buying pelts of the Indians for Louis Campeau, founder of Grand Rapids.
After
several years Quevillon returned and settled on a farm on the Claybanks. Later
he moved to Ludington. He platted a subdivision in the north part of Ludington
naming the streets for his family and himself. Quevillon linked the eras of the
passing red man and the oncoming white man.
Though
the Indians here were friendly when the first white man came, evidence of
strife among the tribes remained. Pounding breakers and beating winds bared the
sandy soil and brought to the surface flint arrow heads and broken bones of
warriors who had fallen in battle. The new comer found Indian history suggested
in the names by which the streams, the villages and the land were known to the
native. Indian legends gave precise accounts of events of historical import.
All combined to tell the story that became the prized possession of the first
white families who lived here. An outstanding Indian,
Naw-gone-ko-ung, "Leading Thunder", bridged the days of the transient
fur trader and the permanent settler. In 1845, just after the death of Sag-e-Maw,
the last chief of the Ottawa, Indian families began to scatter. Leading Thunder
was among the few who remained. Nearly all reminiscences of early settlers
mention him as Good John.
John
was reared in the lodge of his grandmother having been orphaned when a child.
For many years he kept alive traditions that she had imparted to him. The
Indian, having no written language, passed on by accurate oral reporting the
history he wanted preserved. It was from the eager Good John that pioneers
heard the story of Black Robe and the weathered cross that marked the place of
his death. John had seen one of the crosses erected by early missionaries. He
had been converted to Christianity and fired with zeal for the cause.
The Indian such as the white man found here a century ago has disappeared from this region. The few who remain in this county have received schooling and, for the most part, are respected and useful members of this community.
On a
balmy day in the late summer of 1847, The Eagle, a sailing schooner northbound
from Chicago, with a family of six aboard, stood off the entrance to Pere
Marquette Lake. Unable
to
sail through the shallow channel, the captain sent the family ashore in the
yawl. Their oxen, cows, and pigs were forced overboard, and after circling the
schooner once or twice, swam ashore. A year's provisions for the family were
brought to land in row boats. Such was the dramatic arrival of the Burr Caswell
family, first permanent white settlers in the region about Pere Marquette Lake.
Burr was forty years old, his wife, Hannah Green, a year or two younger. Of
their four children, Mary was fifteen, George thirteen, Helen ten, and Edgar
seven.
The
Caswell family lived for a time in a driftwood cabin which the father, who had
fished in the adjoining waters the previous two summers, had built for them.
The cabin was near Nin-de-be-ka-tun-ning, the Indian village of fifty "
fires" and gruesome memory. These Indians lived in lodges, rectangular in
shape, made of bark and covered with dome-shaped roofs. Later Caswell built a
spacious house from lumber which had washed up on the beach, the historic house
still standing on the Lake Shore Road.
Securing
The Waterways
During
the '40's the pine-covered lands surrounding Pere Marquette Lake were turned
over to private ownership. John S. Wheeler made the first entry in June of 1840
taking up a fractional section which included land on the south and east
shores and part of the lake itself. Seven years later the land at the present
channel was entered by Joseph Boyden.
At the end of the decade George Farnsworth and Henry R. Talmadge had taken up the remaining land. These four men controlled transportation on the lake, river and channel.
Waterways
were important then and the man who owned land at the mouth of a river often
exacted tribute of those along its course. The beach was the main highway.
Sailing craft had been spreading their silver wings on the Great Lakes for
nearly two centuries, ever since La Salle's "Griffon" made the first
voyage on Lake Ontario. "Walk-in-the-Water", acclaimed as the first
steamer to navigate the Lakes, had led the way for the propeller thirty years
previously. But up to this time the sailing ship and the steamboat merely
foretold the commerce of the lakes. The inland waterways still belonged to the
canoe, the row boat and the tiny sailing boats.
In 1845 an enterprising young man from Massachusetts, destined to play an important part in the development of the western part of the state, came scouting along the east shore of Lake Michigan. Charles Mears looked with eager eyes on the pine-backed rivers of Mason County. He foresaw that the settlers on the western prairies would build their houses of these towering pines, and the lumber must be transported on these lakes and streams. Of course something would have to be done about these sand-clogged channels, but he was the man to do it. Pere Marquette lands were already taken, but there were "Big Sauble" and "Little Sauble" just north. Mears returned in two years and entered all available land on these lakes and rivers. Old Freesoil beyond "Big Sauble" had been entered in 1844 by John H. Harris.
Thus
all the waterways within the boundaries of the present Mason County came under
control of individual owners. The stage was set for the great drama of the
lumbering era.
Charles Mears had found at Old Freesoil a little water-powered lumber mill, operated by a man named Porter. Porter's mill burned about 1846 and the place was abandoned for awhile, Old Freesoil thereby losing the distinction of becoming the first permanent settlement in the county.
In
1849 a rustic saw mill was built by Baird and Bean on the north shore of Pere
Marquette Lake at the foot of the present south William Street where a little
creek entered the lake. The pine lands surrounding the lake had come into
possession of George W. Ford and Joseph W. Smith. The first land which they
logged off was the present site of the Court House and the Stearns Hotel.
Charles Mears began operations two years later (1851) at Little Sauble, now
part of Epworth Heights.
The years following the arrival of the Burr Caswell family marked the opening of the region to agriculture. Among the first farmers were Amabel Cowan, William Quevillon, Peter LaBelle, Jeremiah Phillips, and Charles King. All settled on the rich land of the Claybanks.
Others soon followed and settled along the watercourses of the region where for untold autumns the gold and crimson leaves of maple, beech and birch had fluttered to the ground to form the fertile top soil of Mason County's fields and orchards.
The
history of farm building in Mason County is packed with drama. If portrayed in
murals an awe-inspiring pageant of men and women of high purpose and great
hardihood could be portrayed. The William Freemans and their seven children
treked over trails covered with ground hemlock into the dense forests of
Freesoil where the father had prepared a house for them. The house burned the
first night of their arrival as howling wolves looked on. Undismayed the
Freemans set up their family altar under the towering trees the following
morning, and the father gave thanks that his family was safe.
The diary of Hiram Beebe of Summit Township reads like a great tone poem set to the rhythm of the woodsman's ax: "Cold and clear. Chopped on the job all day in heavy hardwood timber. "It has been a nice day to chop ... I cut down 50 trees.
"Had
very good luck jamming timber. I will finish the strip 16 rods wide tomorrow
forenoon. "I
broke my ax and now I am a bankrupt timber slasher. "I ground up an old ax that had laid around all summer and
now will have to cope with it."
The David Darrs treked to a homestead in the dense woods of Freesoil. The discouraged father, dismayed by the howling wolves, the pestering fleas and mosquitoes, and the difficulties of travel through forests, was willing to return to Ohio, but the resolute mother walked gallantly along the trail, her industrious fingers busy with her knitting, her needles glinting as an occasional ray of the sun filtered through the dense foliage.
Charles
Dahn and his homesteading neighbors of Amber Township, unable to get material
in by road to finish their log houses, poled a raft of lumber against the swift
current of the Pere Marquette river, battling the slush ice of early winter.
When
conditions made it impossible for them to go on, they tied their raft to the
Elm Rollway for the remainder of the winter. When the homesteaders returned in
the spring for their lumber, every board had been stolen.
The
Samuel C. Genson family drove a covered wagon from Maumee, Ohio, to Victory
Corners. Going down hill the horses fell. The broken tongue of the wagon
pierced the side of one of the horses—an inestimable loss in a new country.
They were obliged to proceed with one horse.
The
wife and children of Pierce Butler arrived at Lincoln and learned with
disappointment that the father who had preceded them, not knowing the day of
their arrival, was not there to meet them. Courageously they set out afoot
through the forest over brambled, vine-harrassed trails to their new home in
Riverton, the elders carrying the young children and all their goods.
Regardless of hardships, occasions for recreation and enjoyment were not infrequent in this new country. An ox-or horse-drawn sleigh could carry a large part of a neighborhood to a sewing bee, a barn raising, a spelling down, a singing or a quilting.
Organization
of churches awaited the coming of the circuit rider, though religion in the
home was not neglected by these sturdy pioneers who were as devout as they were
hardy.
Pioneers
who wrested tillable land from the forest found it necessary to turn to some
other form of work to maintain themselves and their families until the farm
could support them. Fur trading was still profitable when the first settlers
came. The treasured mink and muskrat, the now extinct wolverine and panther,
the fox, and above all, the prized beaver whose pelt was so valuable that it
served as legal tender for lack of currency, were bartered with the Indians for
brass trinkets, gaily colored cloth, knives, guns, tin cups, and the crazing
fire water.
Richard Hatfield who, in the early fifties, married Burr Caswell's eldest daughter Mary in the first white wedding in the county, traded in furs. Dick packed the pelts on his back down the lake shore to New Buffalo, the terminus of the Michigan Central Railroad, then "rode the cars" to Detroit.
Some
of these pioneers, among them Burr Caswell and his two sons, George and Edgar,
turned to fishing for their livelihood. Fishing was big business, not sport,
in those strenuous beginning years. Immigrants were pouring into the fertile
prairies west of the Great Lakes and on to the Mississippi River where for many
years the food supply remained inadequate to maintain the increasing
population. The teeming waters of the Great Lakes helped solve the food
problem. Hundred pound sturgeon, sixty pound trout, forty pound muskellunge, huge
whitefish, pike and pickerel were salted and shipped to this eager market.
The diaries and reminiscences of early comers to this region refer frequently to maple sugar as a money crop. The Indiana produced "Indian" sugar in amazing quantities. J. Freemont Whitaker writes in his reminiscences of Victory Township in the sixties: "Herbert and Gilbert Blodgett came to this district . . . bought sixty acres of fine sugar maple and made and equipped one of the finest camps in Mason County with 3000 buckets." For many years these buckets supplied the syrup for the breakfast stack of hot buckwheat cakes in Ludington homes, and more than one generation of young folks looked forward to the annual jaunt to Blodgett's historic sugar bush.
Though
early Mason County found the passenger pigeon a welcome source of food,
pioneers knew the bird from the sportsman's angle rather than as a business. A
few of these migratory birds came to this part of the state as soon as the snow
was off the ground. They reappeared in June, young, fat and desirable for food
since they fed on sprouted beech nuts which gave them an unusual flavor.
Sometimes
the pigeon appeared for a third time in September. Then farmers found them a
pest since they destroyed the sprouted grain in fall-sowed fields. A migration
averaged more than a billion birds. Pioneers of this region tell of watching a
continuous flight so thick that the sun was obscured for hours.
The
birds lived on forest mast and disappeared with the forest. Like the wolverine
and the panther, the passenger pigeon has become extinct. No doubt the greatest number of
pioneer farmers turned to logging and lumbering for a means of livelihood. The
first saw mills began buzzing in this area shortly after the arrival of the
first white settlers in the late forties. Writing of conditions in early days
from information supplied by the pioneer Charles Houk, Mrs. Merton Luscomb
(Lucille French) relates: "We find that Mr. Houk and Smith Hawley are the
only two people in Summit who try to farm the year round. Most of the men work
their farms in the summer and work in the Ludington lumber camp and mills in
the winter."
Charles Dahn relates, "Father worked in Charles Mears' camp for $96 a year and saved $75 . . . After supper all the men except the teamsters, after working in the woods all day, had to make shingles by hand until ten o'clock."
And
thus grew the structure of this area's early economy-fur trading, fishing,
farming and lumbering. The greatest of these financially was lumbering, but the
sturdy pioneer farmer laid the foundation of the entire structure.
The
territory now comprising Ottawa, Oceana, and Mason Counties was originally
included in Ottawa County. On April 1, 1855 pioneers of this region met for the
purpose of organizing a new county. Indians were invited to attend the meeting,
and records show that Good John accepted and signed the petition. Forty-one
votes were cast. Among the white men who were present were Burr Caswell,
Charles W. King, William Quevillon, Oliver Aubery, Delos Holmes, Hiram Bean,
George Farnsworth and Richard Hatfield. Three townships, Freesoil, Little
Sauble and Pere Marquette were formed.
The county was named in honor of Stevens T. Mason, "boy governor" of Michigan. When in 1831 the territorial governor, Lewis Cass, resigned to become secretary of war in President Andrew Jackson's cabinet, the President appointed George B. Porter of Pennsylvania as governor and John T. Mason of Virginia as secretary of Michigan territory. Porter was too busy with his law practice to come to Michigan, and Mason declined in favor of his nineteen-year-old son who was approved by the President.
In the absence of a governor, the boy became acting governor. When a delegation appeared to protest, young Mason replied, "President Jackson appointed me with his eyes open. Go home and mind your own business." The young man carried on satisfactorily, and four years later was elected first governor of the newly organized state of Michigan.
The first general election of Mason County was held the day after the organization meeting. Daniel Holmes was elected sheriff; George B. Roys, clerk and register of deeds; Charles Freeman and William Quevillon, coroners; John P. Sedan, surveyor; Burr Caswell, judge of probate. Caswell also became fish inspector at this time though there is nothing to indicate this was a county office. The certificate of election was signed by Thomas Andersen and Hiram Orsen as county commissioners (supervisors) and by George B. Roys as clerk.
The
first meeting of the supervisors was held at Little Sauble the day following
the election, and the second meeting occurred in October. At this meeting the
board borrowed twenty-seven dollars from Charles Mears to pay for the necessary
books for the register of deeds of the new county. The next meeting was called
on January 14, 1856. At this meeting Richard Hatfield was paid a bounty of
twenty-four dollars for killing three wolves, and Charles Mears received a
dollar and a half for the book for the clerk, presumably from the twenty-seven
dollars borrowed from Mears. Funds were getting low.
Another special meeting of the board of supervisors was held at Little Sauble early in November of the same year. At this time John Flinn (Flynn) was appointed to assess the property of the county so that three hundred dollars could be raised to pay its outstanding debts. The board decided also that the county seat should be located on the Burr Caswell farm in Pere Marquette Township where a frame building could be used as a court house.
A
meeting was held the following February (1857) at the new county seat, and John
Wheeler was appointed assessor for Freesoil Township.
Two weeks later a meeting of the supervisors was held at which seventy-five per cent was deducted from the tax bills of both Pere Marquette and Freesoil Townships and added to the tax roll of Little Sauble. This brought the latter township's taxes to $693.93—more than the other two combined.
In the
light of what followed one gathers that Charles Mears was not happy about this
soak-the-rich system of taxation.
By the
late fifties Little Sauble which had been born in 1851 was growing healthily. A
dam built where the lake narrowed to form a channel into Lake Michigan now
generated sufficient power to run the mills. A frame building near the dam
housed the saw mill and a grist mill. The place boasted a spacious well-stocked
store building, and a sightly boarding house towered above the cottages of the
workmen. White picket fences protected the gardens that ornamented the village
yards. Mills, store, houses, and fences were refurbished each spring with a
fresh coat of white wash. Big Sauble was four years younger than its sister
village but differed little except in size.
The
settlement at Pere Marquette lagged behind the two Sauble settlements. William
J. Carter, pioneer lake captain, recalled that when he sailed into Pere
Marquette harbor in 1860 the only signs of civilization around the lake were
three buildings—the rustic saw mill, a boarding house of rough unpainted lumber
and a small cottage set back of a white picket fence.
Mrs.
Ellen Egbert, the first white child born in Big Sauble, recalled that around
these settlements, as in the remote parts of the county, timber wolves howled
at night, bears often came in too close, blue green passenger pigeons blotted
out the sun in their migrations, huge fish swam in the waters, sand fleas and
mosquitoes tormented the inhabitants, and babies were born who would grow up to
tell that the happiest days of their lives had been spent in these saw-mill
settlements.
When George Ford took possession of the rustic mill and the surrounding timber at Pere Marquette, the money for the purchase was loaned by James Ludington, a Milwaukee capitalist who later supplied Ford with funds for running the mill. In January of 1859, Ludington, through his attorney, John Mason Loomis of Chicago, secured a judgment against Ford for $69,849.71 to draw interest at ten per cent. Ford transferred the property to Ludington who paid a considerable sum of money in addition to the judgment.
Ludington
was quite fully occupied in Milwaukee.
His
father had established a lumber town, Columbus, in Wisconsin for which James
acted as his father's agent. James was also interested in a railroad and in a
bank. He had taken part in Milwaukee politics to the extent of becoming
alderman. He had established himself in luxurious bachelor quarters in a
Milwaukee hotel. Still a young man in his middle thirties, he gave no
indication at this time of any wild enthusiasm for a tiny lumber mill in
Michigan that had been losing money for its owner.
But
Charles Mears could fit Ludington's mill into his own scheme of things. A
search through Mears' carefully kept diaries indicates that as soon as
navigation opened on the lakes in the spring of 1859 he was ready to begin
negotiations to lease this mill. In April he records a trip across the lake in
company with a group of men, among them John Mason Loomis. They arrived in
Little Sauble on the 26th and the following morning left for Per Marquette
where they "went to Caswell's" (the court house) and attended a sale
of lands. The 28th he and Loomis accompanied by J. P. Sedan (the county
surveyor) went to Pere Marquette and "run a line down the river."
The
next day Loomis and Sedan again went to Pere Marquette, but Mears spent the day
in his store at Little Sauble until five o'clock in the afternoon when he
"Rode pony to Pere Marquette." The following day was Sunday. Mears,
Loomis and Sedan spent the day "mostly" in the store at Little
Sauble. The next day "After breakfast signed contract with Loomis and
Sedan for a lease of the Pere Marquette property two years and then went with
them to Pere Marquette, surveyed harbour, examined lands and returned home to
Little Sauble."
It is not likely that Sedan had acquired part ownership of the mill. His part probably was to contract to do some engineering work on the channel.
It is
also significant that Mears speaks of Little Sauble as home although his
business keeps him in Chicago the greater part of the time.
Charles Hears now controlled all the harbors on the east shore of Lake Michigan between Muskegon and Manistee. His fleet of sailing ships augmented by chartered vessels and his favorite little "Propeller" flitted back and forth between his east shore settlements and Chicago. Eastbound they carried "hands" to work in the mills, settlers and their families who had been encouraged, sometimes aided, by Mears to enter farm lands; oxen and horses for logging and supplies for his stores and camps. Westbound the cargoes were furs, maple sugar, brightly colored Indian baskets, and the all important lumber. During the memorable summer of 1860 cargoes of evergreens crossed the lake in Mears' ships to deck the Wigwam, the hall in which Abraham Lincoln was nominated to the Presidency.
The
entire east coast was thriving, and Pere Marquette began to share in the
general prosperity.
If the
farmers of Pere Marquette Township could have read the entries in Charles
Mears' meticulous diaries in 1859 and 1860 they might have been alerted to
coming changes. On Monday, August 8 of 1859 he wrote: "After breakfast
rode with Mr. Colby (his lawyer) to Pere Marquette where we found the Schooner.
Forrester, in charge of Capt. Nelson of Chicago, for a load of lumber. Sea too
heavy for loading." At this time the lumber from the mill was taken out on
scows in Lake Michigan and loaded since the channel was too shallow to permit
the schooners to enter. "After sailing about the lake and talking with
George Caswell returned to Little Sauble for the night."
A year
later, August 16, 1860, Mears records: "After retiring at a late hour,
left my room and commenced to prepare for changing Pere Marquette river and
inquiring about roads, town business and conventions. The following day after
breakfast started with team, 25 wheelbarrows and a good number of hands and
worked with Pere Marquette hands, 36 in all, during the day and returned at
night." On the next day he hurried to Pere Marquette "with few less
hands." "By driving sheet piling and working hard stopped the water
before dark. Sedan and 7 hands started the water at new channel. Took supper on
the ground and worked till 9 when raining." Changing the channel between
Pere Marquette Lake and Lake Michigan was as simple as that according to Mears'
diary.
From
the records of eye witnesses come highlights on this historic piece of
hydraulic engineering. A primitive road extended north from the channel,
along a narrow strip of swirling sand turned east and continued along the north
end of the lake to the mill. This road had been piled with slabs in some places
as high as twenty feet. A vivid account of cutting the new channel was recorded
in 1914 by August Miller, who had been employed by Mears as a sawyer and who
had worked on the harbor job. He reported that one day the lumberman ordered
his foreman to have his men dig a ditch across this narrow neck of land. Mears
then left for Chicago. During his absence the ditch was made deep enough to
permit Miller to paddle a canoe between the two lakes.
When Mears returned he was informed that his plan of making a new channel was suspected. According to Miller Mears was greatly perturbed. Other reports state that Mears was furious because the canoe had gone through the ditch. He had hoped to be the first to make the historic trip.
At
this point Claybanks farmers objected vigorously to moving the channel. Burr
Caswell, his son-in-law Sewall Moulton, Jeremiah Phillips and others sent
protests to Washington only to find that Mears and Ludington had been there
first and had permission to make the change.
It
required a year to close the old outlet. One account says an old schooner was
filled with debris and sunk in the channel. Miller's account says brush, straw,
planks, and everything available were thrown into the channel slowly closing
it. As the water began to rise in the new ditch the slab-packed road formed a
dam and flood conditions threatened the nearby homes.
With
picks, crowbars, ox-drawn cedar posts, and other primitive implements, Mr.
Mears' "hands" were struggling to make a way through the solid wall
of slabs. With the first opening the water rushed through with such force that
the " Propeller ", attempting to make port, was unable to enter even
under a full head of steam. Many delays and disappointments occurred before the
new channel was banked with slabs, dredged and otherwise made usable. Thus was
born the present channel, the basic structure of Ludington's magnificent
harbor.
Not only the national election of 1860 was momentous because of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, but also memorable was the local election in five-year-old Mason County. Charles Mears of Little Sauble was chosen to represent the people in the state legislature as senator. His influence was soon felt in the county.
To
Mears it was unreasonable that the county seat should remain on the Burr
Caswell farm. The lumberman contended that the logical place for it was at his
thriving, white-washed village of Little Sauble.
It is
not to be wondered at that this energetic, far-sighted business man, who
controlled the jobs in three, possibly four settlements (some claim he leased
the mill at Old Freesoil for a time) was able to induce the supervisors to
present to the voters the matter of changing the location of the county seat.
Nor is
it surprising that with only a handful of farmers to oppose him, the measure
carried. On January 1st, 1861, all there was of county property to move—a few
record books and a little office furniture—was carted to Mears' store at Little
Sauble.
Among
Mears' other achievements that year of progress was having the name of Little
Sauble changed to Lincoln and that of Big Sauble«to Hamlin. He also succeeded
in having a new township, which he also named Lincoln, formed about his
favorite village. His next achievement was to secure a post office for the
community providing space for it also in his store building.
Into
these thriving mill villages and scattered farms of Mason County the Civil War
crashed, taking during four years, fifty-nine men from a population of less
than 900 people. John L. Lynn's tribute to his grandparents, John and Elizabeth
Couch Haggarty, pictures a typical scene of those trying days. " There
were rumors of war and whenever the stagecoach came through to and from
Manistee it was customary (for the Haggartys) to drop their work and go out to
the turnpike to meet it, to receive any mail one might get and to garner
whatever news the drivers might have heard.
"On
June 12, the rattle of the arriving stage was accompanied by the sound of
marching men, and the first sight of a U. S. Army uniform of blue, which the
recruiting officer wore, gave the wordless message that the dark hour had
arrived. Quickly sensing what this meant, John Haggarty said to his young wife,
'It's come Lizzie. War's declared.' She asked him what he was going to do and
his answer came unhesitatingly, 'I must go.' He signed the enlistment blank,
and took his place with the sober faced marching men. He didn't even stop to
unyoke the oxen."
Life
went on in the stricken communities as it always does in war time—women,
sometimes hopeless, courageously carrying on the work of the absent men.
Eventually clouds lifted and skies brightened as the war came to an end.
William Miller, Lincoln pioneer, pictures a happier scene as he tells of
walking with his mother down the beach to meet his father who was coming home
from the war.
The
farmers south of Pere Marquette Lake, especially those engaged in fishing, had
been placed an inconvenient distance from their base by Mears' new channel.
Too, the removal of the county seat to Lincoln put them annoyingly long miles
over poor highways from the seat of their county government. In 1857 they were
granted a measure of relief when the Board of Supervisors of the young county
appropriated $1000 to construct a county road from the line of Oceana county,
through Mason county to the line of Manistee county.
In
1863 the ferry was placed under a licensed operator. William Farrell was
authorized to carry passengers across the channel. Previously travelers had
depended on finding some one living in the vicinity willing to ferry them
across. Farrell was required to give a bond to provide the necessary equipment
and to systematize the rates.
The
equipment consisted of a scow large enough to transport at least one team of
horses, or oxen, and wagon. The scow was man propelled by means of a grooved
mallet-like implement pulled against a steel cable which was stretched across
the channel. Foot passengers were rowed across in a clumsy flat-bottom boat.
Passengers
on the scow were expected, sometimes reminded, to "lend a hand". In
the boat extra oars were carried conveniently for passenger assistance. Fares
were established at five cents for one passenger, fifteen cents for a horse and
passenger, twenty-five cents for a vehicle and horse, and thirty-five cents for
a vehicle and double team.
With the improvement of the road and the assured ferry service, the Claybanks farmers, whose faces had previously been turned toward Pentwater, could now consider their bustling county seat at Lincoln. Here they were invited to do their "trading", get their grain ground, attend court, enjoy social gatherings and pay their taxes.
In
1861 James Ludington took back the management of the Pere Marquette mill which
Mears had been operating for two years. One writer asserts Mears had been
permitted the use of the mill and timber as a reward for changing the channel.
In
recent years some curiosity has been aroused concerning the history and
personality of the man for whom the city of Ludington was named. It is known
that he was born in Carmel, New York in 1827 and at the age of sixteen came
west to Milwaukee with the large Ludington family.
Frequent
mention is made of him in the pioneer Mason County Record from which one gets
the impression that his business was run efficiently, that he was a man of
culture, and that he was generous in his gifts to the community. Unmarried, he
never established a home in the town. His name never appears in the items of
social gatherings. None of the early residents here seems to have been well
acquainted or to have passed on any anecdotes of business or social contacts
with him. Apparently he held himself aloof and ran the town by remote control
from Milwaukee.
After
Ludington took over, no conspicuous developments in operations connected with
the Pere Marquette mill occurred until the Civil War came to an end. Then the
mill owner branched out on a scale apparently intended to show Charles Mears
what a young saw-mill village should be like.
In
1864 the tiny settlement which was a part of Pere Marquette Township secured a
post office with David Melendy, James Ludington's book-keeper and partner in
the shipping end of the business, as postmaster. The post office was named
Ludington. There is some indication that the name Pere Marquette was not
retained because a post office of similar name, Marquette, had been established
in the northern peninsula.
The
new post office was housed in James Ludington's store building near the mill at
the foot of present-day William Street. Besides the rustic store and boarding
house, a few rude shanties had been built for the mill workers along a wagon
road that wound among pine stumps from the mill to the bayou.
This
"street" bore the nicely descriptive name of Sawdust Avenue. One of
the shanties was used as a school house and here Sarah Melendy, sister of the
postmaster, opened Ludington's first school in the summer of 1865.
The
shanty that served as a school house was also used for the first church
services, though religious gatherings had been held in the homes from the days
of the first white settlers.
In the
fall of 1865 the Pere Marquette circuit of the Methodist Episcopal church was
organized and L. M. Garlick was appointed the first pastor. The circuit included
Riverton, Claybanks, and Pere Marquette, visited one Sunday, and Pere Marquette
Settlement, Bird Settlement (Victory) and Lincoln the next.
For
eight years the Methodist congregation met in school houses and public halls
for their services before they were able to build their first church on the
northeast corner of south Harrison and east Loomis Streets when a frame
structure was erected. The opening of the post office, the school and the
church spelled progress to the little pine woods settlement.
In the
fall of 1865 James Ludington began building in the block that is now the city
park, a spacious, well appointed boarding house for his mill hands. Ox teams
belonging to Charles Dahn of Amber did the excavating, and the beautiful maples
set out on the grounds were transplanted as saplings from the Dahn farm.
An
early history says the boarding house was "equal to a first-class
hotel" and the grounds were "abundantly adorned with choice fruit
and ornamental trees, shrubbery, and a profusion of flowers." The tall
building stood well back in the landscaped grounds, facing Ludington Avenue.
Later
a circular driveway which entered from Main Street (Gaylord Avenue) and from
Lewis Street was opened. An orchard and vineyard were planted back of the
building and, since travelers were accommodated, stables were built for their
horses. The buildings were completed in the spring of 1866.
The
same year saw the completion of the first residence, other than the Sawdust
Avenue shanties, within the limits of Ludington, on the southwest corner of
Ferry and Court Streets. This was the pretentious home of Patrick M. Danaher
who, for a year or more had been getting out logs for James Ludington's mill.
In the fall of that year Danaher brought his wife and eight children here, the
eldest James, a boy of fifteen.
The
Danaher home was the beginning of a neighborhood unique in associations that
created ties of life-long friendships.
The year 1866 also
marked the coming of the Luther H. Foster family. Foster came originally from
the state of Maine, but had been employed by lumbering concerns in Wisconsin
where he met James Ludington.
The
mill owner brought Foster here to look after the outside interests of his
business. Employed by the Foster family was Miss Emily Catalina Mitchell,
daughter of a Port Huron judge who had once been the candidate of the
Prohibition Party for the Presidency of the United States.
She
came as governess for the two young Foster boys, Frank and Edward, and followed
Sarah Melendy as first full-time teacher of the Sawdust Avenue school. Another
arrival that year was a young Civil War veteran, a Milwaukee school teacher,
Frederick J. Dowland, who came here as a bookkeeper for James Ludington.
The
following year both Foster and Dowland built houses. Foster's house still
stands on the northwest corner of Ludington and Gaylord Avenues. Dowland and
Miss Mitchell were married and went to housekeeping in their new home on the
northwest corner of Ferry and Court Streets.
In
1867 James Ludington began city planning on a wide scale. He laid out and named
streets over an area of sand hills, swamps, and creek bottom which now comprise
the first three wards of the city, from Lake Michigan to the bayou. It must
have taken a bit of looking around to find a strip of land high and dry enough
for his business street. He decided on one running north from Pere Marquette
Lake and named it Main Street—the present Gaylord Avenue.
This
stump-littered thoroughfare became lost in the woods about two blocks north of
the principal east-west street, Ludington Avenue. The avenue began at Lake
Michigan and extended two or three blocks east where it was barred by a swamp.
If
Charles Mears had glimpsed the plat of this city on paper he might have raised
his eyebrows slightly when he discovered that the first street north of the
avenue had been named Court Street. Why should there be a Court Street in
Ludington when the county seat was at Lincoln?
The
next street north of Court Street, Pere Marquette, was named in honor of the
Jesuit missionary for whom the township had originally been named and of which
the settlement was a part. North of this street were swamp and woods.
Of the
streets running north and south James Ludington began at the lake and named
what is now Lake Shore Drive, Amelia Avenue after a favorite sister. The next
street east he called Park, probably visioning a recreation area in the neighborhood,
and the next Ferry, since it was a continuation from the channel Ferry. East of
Main Street (Gaylord Avenue) he returned to his plan of using family
names—Lewis, William, Robert, Charles (Rath Avenue), James, Harrison, Rowe,
Delia, and Emily. Brothers, sisters, cousins, and he himself were remembered.
His
lumbermen friends—Loomis, Filer, Foster, Danaher, Melendy and Dowland—must have
smiled at the honor conferred on them by giving their names to streets south of
Ludington Avenue. Only a few expected a lumber town to live after the pine was
cut. Having a street named for one in a saw-mill town was considered at best a
short lived distinction.
Ludington,
having platted his city on paper, began at once to bring it into realization.
After the completion of his large boarding house, he next erected his
"mammoth store" on the southwest corner of Main Street and Ludington
Avenue. Luther Foster was first manager of this new store and Jacob Staffon,
who had come here two years previously and started as clerk in the rustic
Sawdust Avenue store, continued in the new building. Here Dave Melendy moved
the post office.
This
emporium supplied the loggers with equipment and provisions for their
camps—everything from the lumberjack's gaily colored mackinaws and spiked boots
to his peevies and canthooks.
The
homesteader bought his ground-breaking tools here and, as soon as his first
produce was ready to market, bartered his surplus hay and grain and his wife's
earthen-crocked butter and country-fresh eggs for dry groceries. The store
supplied yard goods, boots, shoes, hoop skirts, bustles— an endless list of
goods in demand in those pioneer days.
The
second story of the "mammoth" building, entered by an outside
stairway, was used for public gatherings. The religious meetings which had been
held in the Sawdust Avenue school house now moved to the upstairs over the
store. After Luther Foster had organized here the first Sunday school in the
settlement, James Ludington sent to the school from Milwaukee an organ costing
four hundred fifty dollars.
James
Ludington moved the old Sawdust Avenue store building to Main Street south of
the big store and had it made into two store buildings. The "mammoth"
store became known as the big store and for many years was a land mark. Its
list of employees carries the names of nearly every pioneer family in the city.
During
the building boom of this momentous year of 1867, the first hotel in the
settlement was built on Ludington Avenue east of the boarding house by William
Farrell. It was a spacious building almost as large as its neighbor and served
the needs of the growing community many years. It was known as the Farrell
House, subsequently as the Clinton House, then the Gregory House.
After
more than twenty-five years of service it burned to the ground. About the same time this hotel was built a new schoolhouse
was "built in the woods" on the southwest corner of the present
Ludington Avenue and James Street.
A block
farther east on the southwest corner of the avenue and Harrison Street, William
Kieswalter built a grocery store, but it was so far out in the woods it was
hardly considered a part of Ludington.
The
founder's crowning achievement for that eventful year of progress was the
establishment of a newspaper in his thriving village. George W. Clayton, lean
Yankee veteran of the recent war, came to the settlement on the
"inducement" of James Ludington and built himself a house on the
northeast corner of Ferry and Court Streets. In the second story of this house,
he set up a hand press and began the publication of the Mason County Record
September 17, 1867.
In his
first editorial Clayton announced that the village had a chance of becoming a
leading town on the east shore. One thing he did not say, though it must have
been in his mind, was that Charles Hears would have to think fast and step
lively if he intended to keep the county seat in his slowly growing village of
Lincoln.
Among
the advertisers in the first edition of this newspaper were Dr. E. Doty who had
put up a two-story building on the northwest corner of Main (Gaylord Avenue)
and Court Streets.
Here
on the ground floor was housed Ludington's pioneer drug store, and on the
second floor the law offices of Shubael F. White, the town's first lawyer. One
block north on the southwest corner of Main and Pere Marquette Streets, George
Weimer's boot and shoe shop was established.
These two business places together with the big store and the two small store buildings made from the original Sawdust Avenue store comprised about the extent of Main Street business places. The lots were bought up by those who hoped to make a big profit. The selling price was held too high, and business began locating on Ludington Avenue.
Before
long Clayton's "Mason County Record" was telling the world in
general, but intending that Charles Mears in particular should take notice,
all about Ludington's "large and powerful" mill that employed 150 men
and sawed a hundred thousand feet of lumber daily."
The
harbor was widened and deepened by the government. No longer was it necessary
to carry lumber out into Lake Michigan for loading. Ludington and Melendy sold
the shipping end of the business—the tug Cyclone and the schooner Sinai to
Captain Robert Caswell of Milwaukee who later formed a partnership with Captain
Amos Breinig of Milwaukee.
James Foley became a member of the firm when
they purchased an interest in the historic tug Sport. The tug Margaret replaced
the Cyclone, in turn replaced by the B. W. Aldrich. This towing line was active
in the harbor throughout the lumbering era.
"The
harbor," said the Record, "was the best on the east shore north of
Grand Haven" and "without the shadow of a doubt" the village
would be the western terminus of the Flint and Pere Marquette Railway in
process of building. Mason County had a population of 2500, five hundred of
whom lived in Ludington. Farm land near the village sold for twenty dollars an
acre. Pointing out all these advantages, the Record soon had the question out
in the open. Who could doubt that the county seat belonged in Ludington!
Of the seven county officials holding office in 1867 all were residents of Charles Mears' villages—three of Hamlin and four of Lincoln. Would the citizens of Ludington and the southern part of the county permit this monopoly to continue? The battle was on!
Mears
had no newspaper and certainly gained little space in the Record, but he held
on for several years.
In the campaign of 1868 Mears' candidate for
prosecuting attorney, a man by the name of Harley, was opposed by Shubael F.
White, a spirited campaigner. White won and the "monoply" was broken,
but there was more work to be done before the county seat would be moved.
By the
end of the decade Ludington Avenue had been cleared of stumps and graded three
miles. It began to flourish as a business street. George Tripp opened his meat
market near Robert Street. The Record announced "We learn that the village
of Ludington is to have a new Hotel shortly. Mr. David Wilson is the
proprietor." Goodsell's hardware store was established and Duncan Dewar
built a block of five stores with a hall above on west Ludington Avenue at Park
Street. Paul Pomeroy "completed his new building upon the beach to be
used for the manufacture of his celebrated root beer."
But as a business center, west Ludington Avenue and Main
Street began to decline. The Dewar Block and James Ludington's old stores
became tenement homes with clothes lines full of checkered shirts and calico
dresses flapping in the wind, and the housewives were having curtain trouble
with the store-size windows.
Pere
Marquette Lumber Company
Before
James Ludington realized his objective of having the county seat established in
his namesake village, his health failed. Desiring to be relieved of the cares
of his business here, he organized a new company, retaining only an interest.
Several
of Ludington's former associates became stockholders in the new organization,
among them Colonel John Mason Loomis, his attorney, who looked after
Ludington's interest. The new blood in the corporation was Delos L. Filer and
Edward A. (Gus) Foster, brother of the civic-minded Luther. Filer, president of the company, came here
from Manistee where he owned important lumber interests.
Three
years previously, a widower with four children, he had married a Ludington
girl, Miss Mary Pierce, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin B. Pierce, whose home
was on the northwest corner of Court and Park Streets. The Filer family
established their home in the spacious building that James Ludington had built
for a boarding house, no longer needed for that purpose since David Wilson and
others had erected small hotels which took care of some of the men, and many of
the mill employees had established homes here.
The
Filer house of many rooms, set in its ten-year growth of leafy maples and
orange-berried mountain ash, was too large for the needs of the family, and
they occupied only the rooms on the west end. When the growing town required
this building for hotel purposes, it became known as the Filer House. The
Filers continued to live there. Like her parents, Mrs. Filer was a musician of
ability and prior to her marriage had taught piano in the village.
Foster came here from Muskegon and built a roomy house on the edge of the pine forest which surrounded the town. The house stood in the middle of the block between Park and Ferry Streets, facing Pere Marquette. The six young Fosters were a lively addition to the growing community, and from the beginning this home was a center of social activities.
The Pere Marquette Lumber Company entered actively into a development plan for the tiny lumber hamlet.
With a great deal of real estate among its holdings, the
company inaugurated a give-away program that made land available without cost
to churches and other desirable organizations and at low cost to home builders.
The effort of the company to transform the little sand-hill settlement which
began with one rustic saw-mill and a stump-studded street of rude shanties into
an enterprising lumber town of substantial homes received vigorous encouragement.
The
New England Migration
The
Foster families were among the first of the Yankee lumbermen who followed the
forest west. Both Luther and "Gus" were originally from Maine.
Several families of relatives followed them here from New England.
Joshua
Alien, whose wife was a sister of the Fosters, and their son Eugene established
a factory for turned goods such as curtain rollers and broom handles. When this
factory burned ihey purchased the dock at the foot of Main Street where they
built warehouses. Here they carried on an active and important business during
the lumbering era.
The
passenger steamers of the Engleman and later the Goodrich line—the historic
DePere, the City of Ludington, and the old sidewheeler, the John A. Dix among
them, docked here, as did the big coal sailing ships that came up from Buffalo
once or twice a year, the little Pentwater boat, the harbor tugs, and the tramp
hookers.
Eugene Alien and his sister Fannie (Mrs. Frank N. Latimer) as well as Eugene's wife, Mary Montague Ferry, augmented the considerable group of talented musicians who helped make early Ludington music conscious.
Another
sister of the Fosters, Mrs. Marian Hutchins, widow of a Bowdin College
professor, came here with her two daughters. The older, by a former marriage,
Emma Stanchfield, married James B. McMahon, one of the city's brilliant
lawyers; Charlie, the younger daughter, named for her father who fell in the
Civil War about the time of her birth, married James' brother, Porter McMahon.
All
three women were school teachers here in the sand and sawdust days. Their home
was on the northwest corner of Main (Gaylord Avenue) and Court Streets south of
Dr. Doty's drug store. This house later was moved to 207 North Gaylord Avenue,
and Dr. Doty's drug store was moved to Robert Street.
On the corner where these two buildings stood, was erected
the Victorian mansion prepared for Ed Stanchfield's bride, the vivacious Ellen
(Nell) Woodward of Augusta, Maine. Later the Ed Stanchfields were joined by
Nell's brother, Augustus D.
(Gus) Woodward, for many years connected with the First National Bank. Another
relative, Oliver O. Stanchfield, an attorney, built his home on the southwest
corner of Harrison and Pere Marquette Streets.
This group of New Englanders was long active in business, civic, and religious affairs in the growing city and appreciably influential in its cultural growth. "I was surprised to see so nice a company for Ludington," Mrs. Marshall Brayman, a bride of 1870, wrote in her diary after attending a social at Mrs. Luther Foster's home.
The
lumber industry in Ludington made a notable growth during the 1870's. For more
than twenty years prior to 1870, there had been only the one saw mill on Pere
Marquette Lake, the primitive structure built by Baird and Bean in 1849. This
had grown into James Ludington's "large and powerful mill."
In
1870 the Danaher Melendy Company built a mill on the east end of the lake. The
entire Fourth Ward was a pine forest then, the giant trees growing to the edge
of the water. The firm employed more than fifty men for whom they erected a
large boarding house and several small cottages. They built also near the mill
a warehouse for hay and grain, but continued their general store "down
town" on the northwest corner of Ludington Avenue and Charles Street (Rath
Avenue).
The Ward mills soon followed the Danaher mill. Captain Eber B. Ward, whose parents were natives of Vermont, had come west to Ohio and later settled in Detroit. Starting as a cabin boy on a lower lake schooner, Ward had risen like one of Horatio Alger's heroes. In 1869 he was a wide-scale vessel owner and ship builder, and was president of the Flint and Pere Marquette Railway then under construction.
He possessed vast timber tracts along the Pere Marquette River. In 1870 he acquired two mill sites on Pere Marquette Lake and built the " north mill." The following year he built the " south mill" publicized as "the finest saw mill in the world."
This mill started sawing in 1872 with A. G. Spencer as foreman. The usual three-story boarding house and a row of cottages bordering the lake housed the Ward employees' families. Like James Ludington, Ward operated by remote control sending his son Milton and a man by the name of Bean here to manage the business, with John S. Woodruff as one of the top executives. When Ward died in 1875, Woodruff became manager, for a time, for Ward's widow, Catherine Lyon Ward.
In
1878 a company was formed in which Mrs. Ward's two brothers, John B. and Thomas
R. Lyon, became stockholders with Mrs. Ward. Twenty-four year old Thomas became
manager. From then on as long as the business existed it was conducted by T. R.
Lyon Agt. Woodruff remained as secretary.
Among
other early employees of the firm were Justus S. Stearns who had married Mrs.
Ward's sister, Paulina, and Lucius K. Baker, who maried May, eldest daughter of
the E. A. Fosters. Stearns soon bought a mill of his own in Lake County, but
continued his residence in Ludington in the sightly home which he built on
south Washington Avenue and Fourth Street. The Baker home stood just north of
the Stearns residence. Lyon married the lovable Harriet Rice of Ludington.
The
spacious home where their four children were reared stood on the site of the
present Paulina Stearns Hospital. The popular Woodruff family occupied the
house built for Milton Ward facing Pere Marquette Lake.
With
the increasing demand for lumber prodding the mill owners, the Ward interests
developed a unique method of getting their product to market. Gigantic scows,
each with a capacity of 700,000 feet were loaded with lumber and towed to
Chicago by the large tug, the George £. Brockway, Captain William Courtland. As
a rule one of the scows was loading in Ludington while one was unloading in
Chicago and a third was in transit, but occasionally the Brockway towed two
across the lake.
On one
occasion she delivered a record load of 1,400,000 feet of pine in Chicago. Ward
also owned, among other vessels, the three-masted schooner Conneaut, Captain
Reimer Young, and the two-masted Mars, Captain William Young.
Among
the other historic vessels owned by this pioneer umber company was the Sport,
the first steel tug built on the Great Lakes. She was brought to Ludington from
Detroit in 1874, was later sold to James Foley who sold a third interest in her
to Caswell and Breinig. In the early '90's the Cartier Lumber Company bought
her and she remained in the harbor until the end of lumbering days.
With four saw mills buzzing south of the bayou while the
Pere Marquette Lumber Company buzzed alone on the northside of the lake, Wardtown began to surpass Ludington in
population and buildings. For a time transportation between the two
settlements was mostly by water.
"We
had quite a party go up on the tug," Carrie Brayman wrote in her diary in
reference to a dancing party at the Danaher-Melendy boarding house. But however
desirable water transportation may have been for bulky lumber cargoes-and
groups of young dancers, horse-drawn rigs were indispensable. Stump-studded
wagon trails must be made passable.
John
S. Woodruff, a firm believer in the use of by products, a system later adopted
by meat packers under the slogan, "nothing gets away but the squeal,"
thriftily contracted with the city fathers to lay sawdust on the streets. From
Ward's north mill alone was hauled, for a time, fifty cubic yards of sawdust a
day.
Ludington's
fourth mill was built on the east side of Pere Marquette Lake south of the Ward
mills by Dr. George W. Roby. This mill began operating in 1872 under the
management of James Crowley. Lewis C. Waldo who married Dr. Roby's daughter
Minnie, was secretary of the company and carried on the business for Dr. Roby.
The Waldo family lived in the house at 706 East Ludington Avenue. There were
several young children in the family who were frequently met driving their
burrow and cart over the sawdust streets. "Min" Waldo was a popular
hostess and "Lewie's" tenor voice was welcomed in musical circles.
Pardee
Cook and Company bought the Roby mill. They had purchased the mill and timber
at Hamlin from Charles Mears and had been operating there several years. In
1888 their dam broke and, according to an eye witness, Captain John Stram of
the Au Sauble Lifesaving Station, "washed twenty-three dwelling houses and
as many out houses, barns and about 1,000,000 feet of pine logs into Lake
Michigan ....
There was just enough sea running so the logs knocked the houses all to pieces and washed most of the wreckage ashore here, in front of the station."
The logs were picked up and towed to Ludington by the harbor tugs. The firm's three-masted schooner, the Mary Ellen Cook, lives in local history as the ship that rode the Chicago breakwater in a furious storm.
Pardee, Cook and Company's lumber operations in Ludington
were in charge of Will Cook, a handsome young man who drove beautiful horses. His popular
wife and their two little girls, brunette Mary Ellen and blond Rosa Belle, were
socially and neighborly active.
The family moved to California when the mill finished its cut here in 1892.
In
1873 Oliver N. Taylor bought a half interest in a mill on "the
island," the narrow strip of sand dunes between the present channel and
the site of the old channel. In 1888 Taylor became sole owner and operated the
mill until their pine was exhausted. The usual saw mill village sprang up
around the mill to flourish and die. Only its ghost, suggested by a few rotting
piles of the pier, remains.
The
daughters of O. N. Taylor, Lillian (Mrs. Cornelius D. ("Con")
Danaher) and Lulu (Mrs. Edward Freeman) were socially prominent and admired for
their graceful and intelligent horsemanship. The son of the family, William
S., married Ida Cartier, daughter of the Antoine E. Cartiers. Other Taylor children
by a second marriage were still young when the mill closed here and the family
moved to new lumbering areas near Brunswick, Georgia.
The mill on the south side of Pere Marquette Lake is remembered as the Butters and Peters' Lumber Company. Horace U. Butters, a native of Maine, had been active in the logging branch of the lumber business when he came to Mason County in the late sixties. Stewart Holbrook, in his lusty history of the lumber jack, "Holy Old Mackinaw", lauds Butters' contribution to the lumber industry—inventions which eased the work of the loggers and were used wherever logging was done on a wide scale. Butters brought his wife and eight children here to the house at 206 North Park Street.
The eldest son, Marshall F. Butters, married the gracious Maggie Arnott, one of the five socially active Arnott girls whose father was first agent of the recently completed Flint and Pere Marquette Railway (1874).
Butters and his son began operations at Tallman in eastern Mason County. With R. G. Peters of Manistee they bought the mill on the south side of Pere Marquette Lake of Cartier and Filer previously owned by Foster and Stanchfield. This mill had been built in 1872 by Vahue, Hustis and Company, partners of D. L. Filer whose son, Frank, had possession of the property when the partnership with Antoine E. Cartier was formed.
When Butters and Peters bought the mill the Butters family moved across the little lake to the spacious brick house built by Judge Samuel D. Haight. This fine residence in its beautiful setting of about forty acres sloping to the lake had been the bachelor estate of Frank Filer. Here he had indulged his fondness for fine horses.
The
likable Butters family attended Ludington public schools and took an active
part in church and social affairs. Several of the boys married Ludington girls
and reared families here.
At one
time Buttersville was a thriving mill village of three hundred inhabitants.
Besides lumber, the firm manufactured lath, shingles and after 1885 salt,
coopering their own barrels and shipping their products in their own barge, the
Marshall F. Butters, Captain William J. Carter, later Captain John McClure.
This
company also owned their own narrow-gauge railroad, named the Mason and Oceana,
which brought in logs from as far south as Walkerville. Today like Taylorville,
only a few decaying dock piles are left to mark the site of this once
prosperous lumbering town.
Antoine
E. Cartier, the last of the early lumbermen to locate here, brought his family
to Ludington from Manistee in 1878. The hospitable Cartier home filled with
lively young people-eight of them was established at 501 East Ludington Avenue.
After dissolving the partnership of Cartier and Filer, A. E. Cartier purchased
a mill at the foot of James Street which had been built and operated for a time
by William Alien and George Goodsell.