Go back

Notes on Saugatuck 1880

Archive
Screenshots of "Notes on Saugatuck" pages 301 to 310 from the Michigan State Historical Society Pioneer Collections "Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan" Vol III, 1881. Notes on Saugatuck by Donald C. Henderson of Allegan. From the Allegan Journal, July 17, 1880. The entire text is available on Google books. OCR-scanned text in images captions may have errors. Please refer to page images for most accurate text.
301; These beautiful lines from the classical British poet who has so graphically painted Scottish history, romance, and scenery, were recalled to our memory when revisiting Saugatuck on the 5th inst. We made our first trip to the mouth of the Kalamazoo river in 1811, some thirty-nine years ago, going down the river in a small Indian canoe, and stopping with Stephen D. Nichols and William G. Butler, two of the pioneers of civilization in that then wilderness region. We spent two or three weeks in exploring the sheets and pyramids of sand of Singapore (which was then quite a commercial point), the wild and romantic scenery of
302; other on the south side. The village of Saugatuck was organized in 1868, and H. B. Moore was chosen its first president. The village of Douglas was organized in 1870, and C. A. Ensign elected its president. At the late census Saugatuck village had 797 inhabitants, and Douglas 502, while the township proper had a population of 912. For many years past the lumbering business has been the principal industry of Saugatuck and Douglas, but as the best part of the pine of Allegan has been cut and marketed, the lumbermen who operated here have retired from business or have gone elsewhere to carry on their avocations in localities where they can make a greater profit. There is still some scattered pine to be found on the Rabbit river and its tributaries, and on the banks of the Kalamazoo river. This, with the hardwood lumber to be found in the neighborhood, furnishes work for two sawmills in the village of Douglas, and one in Saugatuck, and carried on by Robert M. Moore (with Capt. Isaac Wilson as foreman), and 0. R. Johnson & Co. Douglas has a fine flouring mill kept by John S. Payne. Saugatuck has no such mill at present, the one they had having been destroyed by fire. Here is a good opening for an enterprising miller, as it is surrounded by a fine farming country, and is noted for the superior quality of the wheat it sends to market. In Douglas they have a splendid basket factory, making about 4,000 or 5,000 baskets a day. Messrs. O. O. Wallin & Son carry on two extensive tanneries in Saugatuck, one at Douglas (formerly Gerber's), and the other at Wallinville, a suburb of Saugatuck. They employ a large number of men at their manufactories, us- ing about 10,000 hides at one of their tanneries yearly, and 20,000 at the other. By the way, these tanneries are superintended by the Hon. Franklin B. Wallin, who has been for over a quarter of a century in business at Saugatuck, and is unquestionably the most extensive manufacturer now in the place since the decadence of lumber manufacture. Saugatuck has another tannery, that of Morrison and Leland, which does a good business. Speaking of Mr. Wallin, he crossed Lake Michigan from Chicago December 2, 1853, for Saugatuck, on board of a scow, the D. R. Holt, which he now owns, and of which Capt. Henry Smith was commander, and Henry Allett mate. Hank Smith is dead. Henry Allett is now captain of the aforesaid scow which is used in carrying hemlock bark from Grand Haven to Saugatuck. The tug Fanny Shriver is used by Mesers Wallin & Son to carry on their extensive tanneries, together with three scows; the scow Holt carries 110 tons. THE FRUIT BUSINESS. Now that lumber manufacturing has become of minor importance, grent interest is being taken in fruit culture by the business men and property holders of both Saugatuck village and township, and of Douglas village. Through the politeness of Mr. Horace D. Moore, we were shown some of tho finest orchards on the lake bank in the vicinity of the village of Douglas. As these were the first peach orchards we had ever seen and explored we were perfectly charmed with them. Fruit culture on an extensive scale did not begin until 1869, although the pioneer settlers ascertained the fact that the climate, soil and surroundings of Saugatuck were well adapted for horticultural purposes--peaches especially. 303; Prior to Mr. Butler's settlement in Saugatuck, there was an old peach orchard in the vicinity of Douglas which must have been planted by the French or Indians long before the white settlement of Saugatuck. This so-called 304; peaches are in good demand at Chieago, and are branded 305; the river banks are bereft of these noble red men, and not one of their canoes or pirogues is now to be seen. Prior to 1846 flat-boats ran from Kalamazoo to Saugatuck, being poled up and down, but the completion of the Michigan Central railroad to Kalamazoo that year destroyed in a great measure that system of boating, and by 1848, when the road was completed to Niles, river boating above Allegan came to an end. Rafts and boats, however, carried lumber, etc., from Allegan to the mouth of the river for several years after, -no railroad reaching Allegan till 1868, when the first railroad, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, reached here. Prior to this a large forwarding business was transacted by William G. Butler and S. D. Nichols at Saugatuck, which ceased in a great measure when flat-boating stopped. However, river steamboats continued to ply from Allegan to Saugatuck from 1856 to 1869, among which we may mention the May-flower, Adelaide, Helen Mar, and the Aunt Betsey, the three latter being constructed in Allegan and doing a good local business till the railroads were built to Allegan, when they failed to pay expenses. These boats ran in connection with steam and lake craft to Chicago. Notwithstanding the decline of river commerce, a beautiful little steamer finds it profitable to make two trips a day from Saugatuck to Richmond (a distance of ten miles by water), a point on the Chicago & West Michigan railway, during the summer months. This is a most picturesque route, and we advise all of our friends having occasion to visit Saugatuck during this sultry weather to be sure to take a ride on the steamer Twilight, Captain Robinson, commander, and take a view of the river scenery with the trees in foliage and nature in its most attractive garb. We took that route on our return to Allegan. Saugatuck is now the entrepot for the western part of our county, and has a regular line of steamers connecting the villages of Saugatuck and Douglas with Chicago. The first boat on this line was the propeller Ira Chaffee (built at Allegan), which has been succeeded by the steam barge G. P. Heath, owned by Capt. R. C. Brittain, who is to put on another steamer the latter part of the season for the exportation of fruit and lumber--the latter business being quite insignificant of late years. MISCELLANEOUS. Nov. 17, 1842, the brig Milwaukee was lost off Saugatuck harbor while being loaded, being driven ashore by a sudden squall of wind, resulting in a total loss of her cargo (flour boated down from Kalamazoo and owned by D. S. Walbridge). The captain and eight of his crew all lost their lives. The weather was bitter cold when this disaster occurred, and was freezing very hard at the time. During the hard times in 1837-38 the village of Saugatuck was virtually abandoned except by Mr. Morrison's family. July 25, 1844, the wife of the late John H. Billings and three of her children, together with Mrs. McLaughlin (the wife of the ship builder), were drowned by the capsizing of a boat on the river a few miles above Saugatuck village. In 1838 the first light-house was erected at the mouth of the river. S. D. Nichols was its first keeper. The lights are now kept at the end of the pier in Kalamazoo harbor. George Baker is the keeper. In 1851 Mr. S. D. Nichols open the first store in Saugatuck, the mercantile trade having previously been monopolized in the now defunct city of Singapore. 306; The first post office was established at Saugatuck in August, 1835, and R.R. Crosby was the postmaster, who has had ten successors, George T. Arnold being the present incumbent. Saugatuck was made a port of entry in 1870, and the duputy collector is George T. Arnold. Dr. Chauncey B. Goodrich was the first physician in Saugatuck. He began his practice in 1842. He was chosen Allegan's first republican representative in the legislature in 1856 and died in Ganges in 1871. Saugatuck boasts of but one lawyer, D. A. Winslow. Her first legislator was Peter J. Cook (elected in 1845), followed by F. B. Wallin in 1861, and F. B. Stockbridge (a representative in 1869 and senator in 1821). By the way, Robert M. Moore's big fruit farm, near Douglas, is superintended by Capt. Ike Wilson, formerly of the 3d Michigan cavalry, who occupies a house on one of Mr. Moore's peach farms. Saugatuck's first landlord was the late Moses Nichols, while the name of the present landlord of the Saugatuck house is E. G. Billings. Saugatuck village has three churches, Congregational, Reformed (Dutch), and Episcopal. There is also an Odd Fellows lodge and encampment, a Masonic lodge, a Red-ribbon club, and a Woman's Christian Temperance Union. A sketch of the history of the extinct village of Singapore would be worth publishing, but we have no space at present to do so. The village was a product of the wild cat speculations of that period and was situated near the mouth of the river, opposite Bald Head. It was established in 183% and had a wild cat bank in 1839, which was as good as any other fint money institution of that period and remaining in existence as long as any of them. The village was founded by the New York and Michigan lumber company (Oshea Wilder & Son), and several saw-mills were in operation there from 1837 to 1875, when Stockbridge and Johnson ceased to lumber there and removed to Point St. Ignace in Mackinaw county, Lake Superior. Quite a romance cold be written on the history of Singapore. The village of Douglas has two churches, Methodist Episcopal and Seventh Day Adventist, a Masonic lodge and Red-ribbon club. Saugatuck has a weekly local paper- The Commercial- edited and published by Mrs. Woodhull, which we understand has a fair circulation and is doing well. Nature intended the mouth of the river for a great city, and we think the time is not far distant when Saugatuck and Douglas will be under one incorporation. There is at present no railroad at Saugatuck, which we think was a great mistake on the part of the Chicago and West Michigan railway company, for nature has made this place the shipping and commercial emporium of the fruit belt. Let the capitalists of Saugatuck watch their opportunity (now that business has revived, specie payments have been resumed and good times are assured), and their much needed railroad facilities will be secured and Saugatuck assume that place in the business world which its geographical situation designed it to occupy. In going up the river on the Twilight we passed McCormick's landing, a familiar point in river navigation. From this point to Lake Michigan it is a dense peach orchard all the way. Farmers that used to raise grain are now converting all their farms into peaches and other fruit. The Detroit river under the French and British occupation never presented a lovelier sight than this--the famous fruit belt of Michigan--for the western portion of Allegan 307; county is really the creme de la creme of this great fruit region--the paradise of western Michigan. The grand scenery with which Nature decorates herself on the banks of the Kalamazoo and grand old Lake Michigan, near whose shores these orchards arise, presents a prospect that would inspire a poet. [another classy poem here] While at Fennville we called upon Mr. Matthew O. Wilson, and were shown sixty-four colonies of bees and his mode of culture and care of those useful and industrious insects, which Mr. W. handled just as carelessly as printers do type or editors pens. Last year Mr. W. with fifty-five hives raised 1,250 pounds of honey. The country in this neighborhood seems well adapted to bee culture. Speaking of bees, J. Fenimore Cooper's novel, 308; Indians and the strategy he employed to escape from his savage foes, when he represented where he could find a whisky spring. But let the author tell his own tale. 309; known as Peach Orchard, where quite an Indian settlement then existed. It was these Indians who probably planted the old peach orchard discovered there when the white immigrants first arrived at Saugatuck. Until 1834 the Butler family were the only white settlers at the mouth of the river. In that year Johonnet and Crosby came to Saugatuck and built the first tannery there. Daniel Plummer came there about the same time. Stephen D. Nichols came to Saugatuck in July, 1834, from St. Joseph, and in September returned and has ever since made his home at Saugatuck. Benjamin Plummer, now of Ganges, was one of Saugatuck's pioneers, coming there in the fall of 1834, when he found Butler, Nichols. Johonnet and Crosby, the tanners, Daniel Plummer, Palmer and Mayo (the latter two fishermen), the only white permanent residents in Saugatuck. In May, 1837, Stephen A. Morrison located at Saugatuck and embarked in the tanning business, in which he has continued ever since. In 1844 Wells & Johnson built & tannery near Plummer's saw-mill, now known as Wallinville, but sold out to C. C. Wallin & Son in 1854. This saw-mill was built in 1834, and in 1837 was operated by Benjamin Plummer and Edward Johonnet. THE INDIANS. When the white people came to Allegan county the most of the territory was occupied by a band of Ottawa Indians, under the chieftainship of Macsaubee, who was well known to the pioneers of Allegan county, and who came from Mackinaw every autumn to hunt, and returned to the north in the spring. In the war of 1818 these Indians fought in the British army, and wore medals for the battles they participated in, given to them by the Canadian authorities. During the early days of flat-boating these Indians displayed a British flag at one of their powwows on Bald Head. When the fact became known, the captains of two of those boats (Alexander Henderson and Henry Allett), with their men, made a raid on the festive Indians and carried off the ensign of England and took it back to Allegan as a trophy. The remnant of this Indian band lives on a reservation in Emmet county. MOOREVILLE. This is a western suburb of the village of Saugatuck, and was formerly the seat of the extensive lumbering operations of Mr. Horace D. Moore, who retired from business in 1875, and lives in a comfortable residence near the scene of his former business operations in a beautiful grove on the road to Holland. A fine view of Mr. Moore's residence and its beautiful surroundings can be found in the history of Allegan and Barry counties, in which work much valuable historical information can be obtained relatise to Saugatuck's history. Mr. Mooro is a native of Ryegate, Vermont, and of Scottish descent, 58 years old and came to Saugatuck in 1856. Although he has retired from the manufacturing of lumber, he oversees three farms and owns and cares for a considerable property in Wisconsin and Illinois, owning the Sherman house in Allegan, and a fruit farm near the same place. He intends next season to embark in fruit culture in the vicinity of Saugatuck. During our recent trip to Saugatuck and the fruit regions of western Allegan county, we had the pleasure of partaking of the hospitalities of Mr. Moore for several days, and take this occasion to return our thanks to that gentleman and his wife for the courteous treatment we received. May long life and prosperity ever attend them. 310; SAUGATUCK AS A SUMMER RETREAT. Saugatuck is as well adapted for a summer retreat as Grand Haven, and we have no doubt if some enterprising landlord would erect a good, first-class hotel somewhere near the mouth of the river, say at Saugatuck village, with a boathouse and bath houses on Lake Michigan in connection therewith, that they would be a profitable investment, for no river on the whole eastern shore of Lake Michigan presents more attractive scenery than does the mouth of the Kalamazoo, a region of country rendered classic by the graphic pen of the great American novelist, Cooper. title page table of contents viii

2023.10.386

A flowery, flattering, early account of municipal firsts (first post office, etc.), early business leaders and industries when lumbering was being replaced by fruit growing and — it is speculated — tourism. The pro-Capitalist, business-booster tone is typical of the late 1890s. Many of accepted historic "truths" about the area are based on this (and other contemporary) accounts that lionize the succussful. The author, Donald C. Henderson of Allegan, states that his first trip to the mouth of the Kalamazoo occurred in 1841, 39 years before this text was published.

1830 Settlement, pioneer era1870 Fruit growing, farming, agricultureTransportation: water1836 Newark/Saugatuck Township government1835 Logging and LumberingTanneries1840 Shipbuilding0001 Anishinabek/Ojibwe/Odawa/BodéwadmiTransporation: Rail - other than InterurbanClubs and social organizations1836 Singapore

Winthers, Sally

Digital data in CatalogIt

Gerber's Landing/Peach Tree Landing/Breese

Singapore, Michigan 1837-1875Fennville, MichiganDouglas

Michigan

United States of America

North America

Saugatuck, Michigan (geographic place)

https://books.google.com/books?id=rBIUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=notes+on+saugatuck&source=bl&ots=aHEMPJNFxT&sig=vIjEalGZcG7FNTALHp49abaiaSU&hl=en&ei=8IGZSu6GJYX0Mffv7aoF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

This information was copied from the pre-2023 SDHC website.

01/10/2024

03/31/2024