Baraga County
Source: History of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan: containing a full account of its early settlement, its growth, development, and resources, an extended description of its iron and copper mines : also, accurate sketches of its counties, cities, towns, and villages ... biographical sketches, portraits of prominent men and early settlers. Publication Info: Chicago : Western Historical Co., 1883.
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THE METHODIST MISSION.
In 1834, John Sunday, a native preacher of the Wesleyan denomination, came to Kewawenon. The same year Rev. John Clark visited Fort Brady, and subsequently made a stay at Kewawenon, where he continued the mission work begun there by John Sunday. To him is due the credit of erecting the old log mission house, schoolhouse and many of the Indian houses which lined the shore of Keweenaw Bay.
In 1837, D. M. Chandler, the first regularly appointed Methodist preacher to the Sault and Kewawenon Missions arrived.
In 1838, W. H. Brockway, a blacksmith, was appointed Methodist minister at the Sault, and, in 1839, Superintendent of Missions.
The Indians named him Pewabic, the Iron Man. At this time, the Methodist Indian Mission at the Sault received annually from the Government the sum of $1,400, and each of the missions at Kewawenon, Fond du Lac and Sandy Lake, $250 for school purposes and care of children. The Methodist missionaries at Kewawenon, from 1837 to 1852, are named as follows:
D. M. Chandler, 1837; W. H. Brockway, 1838; George King, 1838-40; John Kahbeege, 1840; George W. Brown, 1841-43; Peter Marksman, 1843; John H. Pitezel, 1814-46; Joseph W. Holt, 1846-47; Peter O. Johnston, 1847; N. Barnum, 1848-51; Rufus C. Crane, 1849.
In 1852, the territory was laid off as the Lake Superior District of the M. E. Missions, with James Shaw, Superintendent, and Robert Dubois, missionary at Kewawenon.
The following descriptive paragraph, from Rev. Mr. Pitezel's reminiscences of his first year at the Mission of Kewawenon, is interesting. The year referred to must be 1844-45, although in his work on "Lights and Shades of Missionary Life," he leaves the reader to suppose the date. He says: "This mission is situated near the head of Ke-we-naw Bay, one of the finest in the world, on a sightly spot, about forty rods back from the water. Near the house bursts forth from the side hill a living spring, an invaluable treasure anywhere. From the shape of the bay, this region, for miles around, is called by the French L'Anse, which may apply to anything shaped like an arch. Should we use this word occasionally, instead of the longer Indian name, it will be understood as designating the same place. The Indian cabins lined the shore, and were mostly those built by order of Rev. John Clark. They bore evident marks of age and decay. The mission house was of hewed logs, about twenty-four by sixteen feet, one and a half stories high, covered with cedar bark, and a little shanty appended, which some of the missionaries had used for a study. We had on one side of us, near by, the Government blacksmith, and on the other side the carpenter, and off some distance, in another direction, was the farmer's family. These constituted our white neighbors. Across the bay, directly opposite, was the Catholic Mission, three miles distant."
The present mission of L'Anse embraces Pequaquaming, Kewawenon, Indian Mission, Baraga and L'Anse.
The Pequaquaming settlement is sustained by the Hebard and Thurber sawmill, which gives employment to about 250 men. There are about fifty families residing there.
The Kewawenon Mission has a membership of seventy-five Indians of the 175 Indian inhabitants. There was a little church built there by Rev. Mr. Pitezel, which is still existing.
The Lake Superior Camp Meeting Association purchased a tract of forty-five acres of the mission farm, near L'Anse, and held its first meeting on the grounds in the summer of 1881. The Methodist Church is at present administered here by Rev. A. Whitcomb and Rev. Stephen Polkenhorn.
The Catholic Church was established in the county in 1841 by Rev. Frederick Baraga, in Baraga Township, at Dubay's Place, on the west side of Keweenaw Bay. The church was a building owned by Peter Crebassa, which stood on the site of the American Fur Company's old place, a mile and a half above L'Anse Village, moved on the ice to Dubay's, and there dedicated as a church by Pere Baraga. This was the beginning of the Catholic Mission at Baraga. The present stone church was built by Rev. G. Terhaust, in 1878.
Rev. Edward Jacker, writing in September, 1882, says: The Roman Catholic Mission of the Holy Name at Baraga was established by the Rev. Frederick Baraga in 1843; he built a little church and twenty-four substantial log houses for Indian converts. Being appointed Bishop, he left in 1853. At that time, the number of individuals of all ages-Indians and half-breeds - belonging to the missions was about 350, and at nearly the same height it has ever since remained. In 1854, Rev. A. Van Paemel had charge of the mission; then Rev. Charles Lemagie; after him, Rev. Edward Jacker, who was succeeded, in 1861, by the present pastor, the Rev. G. Terhaust. He has now had charge of this Indian mission for nearly twenty-two years, and of the Catholic congregation of L'Anse since the existence of that village, officiating at both places every Sunday. All the improvements, buildings and institutions at the Indian mission, as it now stands, with the exception of the Government Schoolhouse, are due to his energy and perseverance. They are principally the convent, asylum and boarding-school of the Sisters of St. Joseph, a three-story stone building large enough to accommodate over a hundred pupils; a commodious church, built also of stone; the priest's dwelling-house of the same material, and a model farm of, some thirty acres, with stables, barns and wind-mill. The produce of this farm forms the chief support of the sisterhood and their Indian orphans, as also of four Indian boys adopted by the missionary and being trained, under his direction, to agricultural pursuits—the nucleus of a farming school for the tribe. The example and advice of the pastor has been followed by a number of Indians, who, abandoning their indolent and roving habits, have taken to gardening, farming and cattle-raising. Father Terhaust has succeeded in making all these improvements with little outside help, by the economical management of the local resources. All the building stone has been gathered from the surrounding grounds—now fine meadows and gardens—where it lay scattered in the shape of bowlders of every size. Father Terhaust was born in the Kingdom of Hanover in 1829; he came to America at about the age of twenty years, and was ordained a priest by Bishop Baraga, in 1860. He speaks the Otchipwe language with great fluency. The Government school for Indian boys and girls, at the Catholic Mission, is kept by one of the Sisters. The schoolhouse—a small frame building—was erected in 1860.
The convent, orphanage and schools of Baraga form a conventual village in themselves.
The Catholic Church in L'Anse was founded in 1874 by Rev. George Terhaust. At that time, the present church edifice of L'Anse was built. This church is attended from Baraga. The following reference to the man in whose honor the county is named, from the pen of a cotemporary Christian preacher will be of interest.
Rev. John H. Pitezell, the well-known Methodist missionary in the Lake Superior District, from 1844 to 1852, in his brief references to L'Anse, says of Father Baraga: "While at L'Anse, Bishop Lefevre, of Detroit, with Mr. Baraga, came and dined with us, and I was glad afterward to return his friendly call at Detroit. Rev. Frederick Baraga was the resident priest at L'Anse at our arrival, then probably about fifty years old, descended from a family of distinction in Europe; well educated, speaking readily six or seven living languages, including German, French, English and Ojibwa. He spent years on the shores of Superior, building a church and making extensive improvements on the shore of Keweenaw Bay, opposite the Methodist Mission. He traveled extensively on foot and by all methods then in use. Temperate in his habits, devout and dignified in his private and ministerial bearing, he was universally respected by Indians and the mining community, and affectionately loved by those in closer fellowship. At a more recent date, in consideration of his sacrifices and meritorious services, the Pope honored him with the miter of a Bishop. Years since he has passed beyond the vicissitudes of earth, transmitting his name to the county, within which the two missions named above, are located, an honor richly deserved. The following letter to me I copy verbatim et liberatim et punctuatim:
REVD. JOHN PITEZELL, AND THE WHOLE cOMMUNITY OF THE METHODIST
MISSION, L'ANSE:
Dear Friends : I have been requested by some of you to let you have the
bell, which is hanging in our steeple here, as soon as another one,
which is now at the Sault, shall be brought to this place. But this bell
does not belong to me; it was lent to my chapel by the deceased Mrs.
Cotté, to whom it belonged.
As Mrs. Cotté is now no more, I requested her afflicted husband to let you have the said bell, in regard of the kind services which some of you have bestowed upon his lamented wife, in her last days; and he cheerfully consented to give you the bell; for the use of your chapel, as soon as mine shall be brought from the Sault.
Resp. your sincere friend,
L'ANSE, April 7th, 1845. FREDERICK BARAGA.
Previous to the donation of the bell, the Methodists of the mission were called to prayer and school by a large conch shell, which could be heard at a great distance. After its presentation to the mission, it was hung on two posts, and remained in that position until the mission church was built.
THE PRESS.
The Industrial Age was founded in 1874 by the Waldron Bros., and published during six or seven months. In 1875, the office was purchased by C. B. King and Sylvester Kenny, and the L'Anse News inaugurated, December 1, 1875. In the spring of 1876, C. B. King purchased Mr. Kenny's interest in the News and continued to publish the paper until May, 1877, when it was discontinued, and the office sold to the publisher of the Houghton Gazette.
The Lake Superior Sentinel was inaugurated at Michigamme as the L'Anse and Michigamme Bee, May 1, 1880, and was published there under that name until May 20, 1881, when the office was moved to L' Anse and publication carried on until January 1, 1882, when the name was changed to the Lake Superior Sentinel. The Sentinel has an average circulation of 500 copies weekly. It is now an eight-page quarto of forty columns.
SCHOOLS.
The first school district wan organized in 1857. The present condition of the schools is set forth as follows: Arvon Township, Districts No. 2 and 3-No. 2 District claims twenty-five children of school age, seventeen of whom attended school during the year 1881. One log school building, and property valued at $500. Total expenses, $214.50. No. 3 District has thirteen children, ten of whom attend school. No school building Expenses, $84.40.
Baraga Township is now divided into three districts. The number of school children in 1881 was ninety-eight, of whom fifty-eight attended school. There are two frame school buildings, valued at $1,800. The total expenses for the year 1881 were $2,123.40.
L'Anse School District No. 1 claims 293 children, of whom 249 attended school during the year 1881. There are two frame school buildings, valued at $2,000. Expenses for year ending September, 1881, were $5,434.
District No. 2 claims 110 children, of whom thirty attend school. The district has no public building. Expenses for year 1881, $236.25.
A census of school children of L'Anse was taken by John O'Connor in August, 1882, and the number foots up something over three hundred in this district. Estimated on the usual basis, the total population of the district would, therefore, be not less than fifteen hundred souls.
At a special meeting of the board, held on August 26, 1882, the $8,000 asked by the School Board to build a new schoolhouse was voted, so that, with a new school building and new court house, the second era of progress at L'Anse will be entered upon.
Spurr Township schools are comprised in one district. Number of children, fifty-four; number who attended school in 1881, twenty-eight; one frame school building, with property valued at $1,500; total expenses for year 1881, $1,208.09.
The schools of the Christian missions are well conducted.
STATISTICS.
The population of the divisions of Baraga County in 1880 was as follows: Arvon Township, 100; Baraga Township, 400; L'Anse Township, 170; L'Anse Village, 1,014; and Spurr Township, 120; total, 1,804, including 528 Indians and half-breeds. Looking over the census returns of Houghton County, we find that, in 1850, L'Anse Township contained a population of 126; in 1860, it contained 327 whites, 253 Indians and two colored persons, presumably half-breeds; while the township, as known in 1870, was credited with a population of only thirty-three.
The population of the county in 1880 was 1,804. Number of acres in 1881, 576,000; number of farms in 1881, 41; number of acres improved, 852.
The county is new in the full sense of the word. Its population in 1880 was 1804. There were only 852 acres under cultivation, and the number of farms did not exceed forty-one. Were the 576,000 acres of land reported as forming the area of the county in 1880 equally divided, each man, woman and child of the population would be the possessor of a fraction over 319 acres.
The part taken by citizens of the county during the war of the rebellion belongs to the history of Houghton. In the general military history given in this work, full references are made to the private soldiers and commissioned officers furnished by the district.
MARKETABLE LANDS.
The United States lands of Baraga County open to entry at the land office, Marquette, amounted to 62,000 acres October 1, 1881. There were 11,774 acres of school lands at the disposal of the State, 2,000 acres of St. Mary's Canal Mineral Land Company's land, and about 200,000 acres of the Michigan Land and Iron Company's property.
The almost indisputable evidence which an earlier race of miners have left in several of the gold-bearing streams of the county proves conclusively that the people who once occupied this land, and whose origin is lost in the mists of conjecture, delved for the minerals in this region. The same difficulties which obstructed the operations of Toltec and Spaniard in the Southwest, also stood in the path of their American successors. Isolation and savagery have retarded the peninsula's development. These two words express the causes which have prevented this county's advancement and deprived her of the position which she is soon destined to attain.
Now that the savage has succumbed to his destiny, and the mountains and valleys which once resounded with his war-whoop re-echo the music of civilized industry, and that isolation has been driven to more distant fields by the shriek of the locomotive, this portion of Michigan is rapidly coming to the front as the most promising mineral region in all North America. An army of prospectors Warm through her valleys and mountains; new discoveries are constantly being made; mills and furnaces are constantly going up; the yield of bullion is steadily on the increase; capital is seeking investment; railroads are penetrating in every direction, and henceforth the career of the county is to be onward and upward.
L'ANSE.
This village, the seat of justice of Baraga County is located at the head of L'Anse Bay, at the mouth of Fall River, in the northwest quarter of the county, sixty-three miles northwest of Marquette, twenty-eight southeast of Houghton, and 500 miles by water routes from Detroit.
The Indian Reservation, comprising three townships, and inhabited by about five hundred Otchipwes, is located three miles to the northwest. The place takes its name from the beautiful bay upon which it is situated, and which was named L'Anse, "the arch," by the early French dis¬coverers, by the way of pre-eminence, from its being the best, safest and most beautiful harbor on the lake.
It is at present the western terminus of the M. H. & O. R. R., and promises to be the northern terminating point of the Chicago & North-Western Railroad, the building of which is authorized westward from Ishpeming.
Its railroad and shipping facilities, with the immense water-power Fall River affords it, must in time become an important manufacturing point. Within the limits of the village there is a fall of seventy-six feet, and within nine miles of its mouth the aggregate fall is not less than eleven hundred feet. The iron district approaches within five miles of L'Anse, and it is expected that that metal will be largely shipped from this port. Locations were laid out for one or more blast furnaces at one time, but, owing to the panic of 1873, the project was not pushed forward.
Up to 1871-72, the only settlements here were those of the Catholic and Methodist Missions, located a little farther down the bay; but, in view of the speedy completion of the railroad, a village was platted in July, 1871-72, and several hundred inhabitants flocked in, with the prospect of it becoming a place of considerable importance. It is not unlikely that L'Anse will remain the terminus of the roads for some time to come, though they are ultimately to be extended to Ontonagon, and possibly to the Montreal River, the boundary line between Michigan and Wisconsin.
The M. H. & O. R. R. Co.'s ore dock at L'Anse was built in 1872. It has eighty-three pockets, with a capacity of 6,600 tons.
The village of L'Anse was platted in 1871, by S. L. Smith, Charles H. Palmer and Capt. James Bendry. The average price of lots on Main street was $1,000, and all were sold.
The public buildings of L'Anse are the old Bendry House, rented for the purposes of the county offices until the new court house is constructed; the Catholic and Methodist Churches and the schoolhouse. The M. H. & O. R. R. dock forms an esplanade, while parallel with this structure, and west of it, is the extensive ore dock, constructed at a cost bordering on half a million.
The only secret society organized in the village is the A. O. U. W., articles of incorporation of which were adopted January 4, 1882.
The first hotel established at L'Anse, or in the county, was the L'Anse House, moved on a scow to this place in 1871, by S. Lloyd. A stone foundation, fronting. on Main street, was built, and the frame house from Houghton placed thereon.
The Lake Linden House was moved from Lake Linden in 1872, by P. Roberts. Like the L'Anse House, a foundation was built on Main street, just north of Meadow Creek, and the building placed thereon.
Since 1872, the Berlin, Ottawa, Coles and the Voetch Houses were built, and are now operated as hotels.
The churches and schools of the village are referred to in the history of the county.
A saw-mill was built at L'Anse in 1838, by Charles Childs. This was burned about 1850. It was the first and last lumber manufacturing industry of the village. At present, there is a full promise of the revival of enterprise.
Regarding the village, the following sketch of its past history and present prospects will be found of interest:
About the year 1870, attention was first called to this point as an outlet by water for a portion of the vast lumber and mineral wealth of the north end of this peninsula. It was thought at that time that nothing could prevent there being a large city built here as a rival of Marquette for manufacturing and shipping business. The prospects were so flattering that people flocked in here from all parts to secure property, in anticipation of the future wealth that would come of the investment. So intense became the excitement that large houses were loaded onto scows and floated thirty and forty miles to this point; people could not wait to build. Outside parties owning the property platted a large town and sold lots at from $1,000 to $2,000 each. These capitalists thought, like Col. Sellers, that there were millions in it, and gave the screws an extra turn. Things moved along nicely until the panic of 1873, when the speculative properties of the enterprise became apparent. Stern reality took the place of fiction; the bubble burst, and L'Anse of to-day is what remains of the wreck. For some unexplainable reason, every effort to resurrect the dead ambition has proven futile. Many abandoned all hope and left the earnings of a lifetime among the sad reminiscences of a dire calamity, that followed in the trail of what appeared full of promise and a judicious investment. The location remains, with every quality it ever had, as far as desirability as a shipping point is concerned. The property is the same to all outward appearance. Every advantage it then had it has now as a manufacturing point. Still it stands where it stopped ten years ago, telling the sad story that those who were once enlisted in her welfare are now scattered. Those who now own and control it are indifferent to every project spoken of to revive the town.
Beautiful sites for residences are unoccupied, splendid water powers and privileges running to waste. A dead calm has settled down like a heavy gloom over the future that was once so favorable.
Those who remain thoroughly understand the situation and make the best of it. They are wide awake, energetic men, and conduct the business of the town in a manner that would be creditable to towns of greater pretensions. They recognize the difficulties under which they labor, and still hope for better things. Those in trade have a good, healthy business, derived largely from the surrounding country, which is rapidly assuming an agricultural appearance, with very favorable prospects for becoming thickly settled by Germans, who are colonizing at different points. They also have a large trade with the half-breed Indians, who have a reservation outside of the city limits. There is a bank for the accommodation of the lumbering and mining interests, a good drug store, and such other miscellaneous stores as are found in country towns; two comfortable hotels, and a good paper published here by Mr. Kinney, formerly of Michigamme. Mr. Kinney is working hard to attract settlers into this section, to occupy the choice farming lands just outside of the town. There is a fine water-power running to waste within a few rods of the main street, of sufficient capacity to operate a large factory. Why some industry does not select this point to engage in manufacturing of some kind is indeed a mystery that can only be explained by the assumption that those who have tried it in the past. have been unsuccessful, thus discouraging others from making an attempt.
Nester Bros., formerly of Saginaw, have built a large mill at Baraga, two miles across the bay. They tried to secure a site at L'Anse, but failed. They have the machinery on the ground, and will have their mill ready for work this spring. They expect to be able to cut 150,000 feet per day, and employ about three hundred men.
Hibbard & Thurber's mill, eight miles up the bay, is running day and night to cut the large supply of logs put in last winter.
The slate quarries are gradually increasing their facilities for getting out roofing slate, to meet the growing demand for that article at Chicago and Detroit. The day is not far distant when these quarries will become a source of great revenue to this section.
For beauty of situation, extravagant language can be used very appropriately, and still much remain that must be seen to be appreciated. The natural beauty of the location for a town is not surpassed by any other point on Lake Superior. That nature designed this harbor as a shipping point for a large and valuable tract of country is also evident. These natural advantages are so prominent that a mystery seems to pervade the minds of all who visit L'Anse. Why such a desirable location should remain unimproved is the inquiry daily made by strangers unacquainted with the history of the town.