Clare County

Ford Tractors undergoing testing in Harrison, MI

Industrialist Henry Ford was a lousy tipper, at least when he got his shoes shined in Harrison. And at least according to historian and author T.M. Sellers, who wrote the book on John “Spikehorn” Meyers and penned a number of articles on Clare County’s history. Sellers said that one time, while in town, Ford had his shoes shined at the barber shop that stood on the corner of Second and Main, paid Charles E. Amble the nickel cost of the shine but didn’t tip the boy.

1916 map of Greenwood Township showing Ford’s initial 640 acres (one square mile). 

Whether Ford’s tipping habits were unusual, his trips up to Harrison were not. After all, Ford owned more than 1,600 acres in Greenwood Township to the west. He first purchased 640 acres of stump-laden land in 1910 and then added to his landholdings in time. His initial use was to use the land once he removed the estimated 5,000 stumps (at $1.25 per stump) was to test the tractors he had started developing in 1906. One way they were tested was to plow land to raise crops such as potatoes, hay and wheat that could be then sold in the Detroit area. By the 1940s, Ford had added several hundred sheep and cattle and used some of the crops being raised to fatten the animals for shipment to market.
In the early day, Ford would sometimes make the drive to Harrison (or be driven), staying overnight in Saginaw since there were few roads. Ford would sometimes have a car shipped to Clare County by rail—a much faster way—and then he would drive the car once arriving in the county.

There are stories of Ford playing tennis with the Cornwells who also owned a large cattle

Cornwell Ranch near Harrison

ranch in the county and fishing with Bernie and Ike Hampton. Bernie owned the Ford dealership next to the barber shop in Harrison (now the Harrison Marketplace).

How often Ford came here or everyone he visited with is not recorded, and sadly no photos of Ford in Harrison has surfaced. What we do know is information obtained from Sellers and in an interview that was done with Howard Davis who worked on the farm from 1940 to 1944 and was interviewed in 1997. Davis said nine men worked at the Ford Farm in the summer and three in the winter and that workers were paid 40 cents per hour for a 10 hour day, although sometimes they worked 14 hours. There was no overtime, but the men could take time off for work in excess of 10 hours. Davis noted that the rate of pay he received during the 1940s was the same as workers had received back in 1918. He said he was satisfied since local farmers were paying their help only a dollar per day.

When asked if the Ford farm was he locals liked having the Ford farm in that he employed local people to work. There was a proposal at one time for Ford to buy stock in the Harrison Elevator to allow the building of a flour mill but for some reason that proposal never came to fruition.

Davis added that the locals had first laughed at Ford’s tractors saying they were too small, but over time, Ford’s tractors gained respect for the work they could do. There’s no word on whether Ford garnered the respect of that shoeshine boy after failing to tip him.

Note: The Ford Farm is now part of the Kitty Kurtis Inc. 

Another article on the Ford Farm: Henry’s Michigan Stump Farm by Ford R. Bryan

This is a revised version of an article that appears in Harrison’s 125th Anniversary History booklet written and edited by Angela Kellogg to celebrate the mid-Michigan city’s quasquicentennial that was celebrated in August 2016.  Copies are available for $10 from the Harrison District Library. 

In 1879, The Pere Marquette Railway pushed its tracks through to Harrison from Clare.  The railroad was a welcome and needed addition as it connected the growing town and county seat in the wilderness with big cities to the south, like Saginaw, Detroit, New York and Chicago.  These cities and others needed lumber and Clare County towns like Harrison had plenty.  The track was owned and operated by the Pere Marquette Railway, and like most railroads, it owned a 66-foot wide right-of-way, with the tracks down the middle.   Nothing could be developed within that area without permission of the railway and markers on both sides—made of wood at the beginning and later of concrete—marked the boundaries.

Harrison in the late 1880’s. Structures in distance are sawmills. Photo from the Harrison Public Library collection.

While the town of Harrison would become the city of Harrison and prosper, the Harrison rail line would not. Within a decade, the huge pines that had fueled the town and county’s growth, and generated much of the railroad’s revenue were gone.  Cut into boards and hauled south.  Although cutting and transporting ice from Budd Lake (to provide cooling for ice boxes before the days of refrigerators) would help preserve a rail line to Harrison for a while, fewer and fewer people rode the rails and less and less freight was sent by train.  After all, automobiles and trucks were quickly becoming the popular mode of transportation.

In 1944, within the lifetime of some residents who had seen the rails put down in Harrison, they were pulled up.  Over the intervening years, the railroad grade was leveled and the Harrison depot was moved (the Jack Pine Restaurant sits approximately where the depot once stood.  All evidence of a railroad in Harrison disappeared.

Well almost.

Within the city’s boundaries, a handful of small reminders of the railway still remain. They are the concrete Right-of-Way markers placed by the railroad.  Each one is approximately 24-inches tall and 11 of them can be found within the city limits.  All are triangular with the letters P.M.R.Y on one side and R-O-W on a second side.  The marker furthest to the south can be found near the  S & R Diner parking lot on First St (Old 27).  Others can be found other streets in town such as Oak and S. Lake.

Finding them can be an enjoyable adventure. However, it’s important to note that while most are visible from the street, all markers are on private property, so if you wish to see these traces of the past, please be respectful.

The following article appeared on Page one of the Dec. 4, 1925 issue of The Clare Sentinel .   Apparently, farmers back then could be trusted with dynamite.  However, as the note at the end of the article reveals, there was a dark side and some people used it for the wrong reasons, even back then.

DO FARMERS WANT EXPLOSIVE?

Orders Must be Placed Now for 5,000 Pounds to Complete Car.

Some few weeks ago it was learned from the Extension Department of the Michigan State College at Lansing that it would be possible for Clare county to obtain from the U. S. Government another car of the now- famous war-explosive “Pyrotol.”

A minimum car load is 20,000 pounds. Up to date orders have been placed for 15,000 pounds. Orders must be placed for the additional 5,000 pounds, before it will be possible to obtain the carload allotment. It has been stated that this will be the last opportunity for Clare county to obtain a carload of the explosive. While it is said that “Pyrotol” is more powerful than the strongest dynamite the price is only approximately one-third that of the latter explosive, Costing the farmer 9 1-2 cents per pound delivered at Clare; arid also while the supply lasts, there will be 100 caps given free with every two hundred pounds of “Pyrotol.”

Orders are being taken at the Citizens State Bank, or at the office of The Clare Realty Co. It is hoped that sufficient orders may be obtained within the; next few days to enable Mr. Bicknell to have car shipped this month.

If you have any stumps or boulders to blast, or have any need whatsoever for a powerful, reasonably-priced explosive now is the time to order.

Farmers residing in counties adjoining Clare are not barred from getting in on this and the price to them will be exactly the same.

***

Note:  According to Wikipedia, pyrotol was an explosive available for a time after World War I. It was reprocessed from military surplus.  Usually used in combination with dynamite, it created an incendiary blast. Since it was very inexpensive, it was often used by farmers to remove tree stumps and clear ditches.  The substance was known for being used to commit the Bath School bombing in 1927 and distribution of pyrotol for farm use was discontinued in 1928 due to exhaustion of the supply of surplus explosives.

It’s amazing the interesting things one can run across in old newspapers.  For example, I was conducting some research into Windover Lake in Clare County, Michigan and found two articles in the The Clare Sentinel looking at the county’s history during the logging era (1870-1880).  One entitled “Story of Pioneer Days” had to do with the town of Meredith in the northeast corner of the county, a place that was a ghost town when the article was written. Meredith is a town I’ve covered in the past.

Anyway, the articles were so interesting that I decided to reprint them here. Some of the items and people they mention are completely unfamiliar and so more research is needed. Just shows there is a lot of history in this county YET to be discovered and covered.

(Editor’s Note: Both articles spell Meredith as “Meridith.” Not sure the reason for the latter spelling. Historian Forrest Meek spelled the town as Meredith in both his books on the county and Angela Kellogg, Harrison Librarian and author of a book on the Harrison area says the plats all say Meredith.  In addition, the articles in the newsletters were all one paragraph. I have added paragraphs to make the articles easier to read online.)

PEN ETCHINGS

Would that I were a novelist, is the wish that comes to this Etcher as he recounts the Rabbi’s reminiscences and reads the Sentinels’ “30 year ago” column. The scene Clare county, the subject matter the history of this locality the past 30 years. The characters good, bad and otherwise—Geo. J. Cummins fighting the ring at Farwell, the County Seat scrap, A. J. Doherty from sawdust shoveler to big politician, Jim Carr and his bawdy house at the present site of the old county poor house at Harrison, he defying the county, spending S20,000 to 830,000 and dying with his wife in a pitiable condition near Meridith. Meridith and Dodge vanished. The timber barons, the famous “highway orders” in Clare and Gladwin counties, timber stealing and appraising land, the lumber jacks at Meridith, Clare, Hatton, Farwell and Harrison. The famous Vernon funeral sermon, “You devil you rest in peace.” Joe Hudson cutting a hole in the woods— his bear scrap, the school at Leota in 1907, the famous political triumvirate. Editor Goodenough with a prison record, striving to be a man, the pine wealth denuded and rushed pass Clare a train load of logs every 15 minutes, yet with all the generous impulse, the kind heart of the people and the stalwart men who have come out of such environment— what a theme for a novel. The characters, composite perhaps, are all in the memory of the old residents, living today many of them, and only need concentrating to produce striking characters, and yet a true interpretation of development in this part of Michigan.

Clare Sentinel, Aug. 27, 1929  http://condor.cmich.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/claresent2/id/7137/rec/14

STORY OF PIONEER DAYS

Meridith

In this day of good roads, automobiles, tourists. accommodations of every kind, in fact everything is provided for the comfort annd welfare of the traveler, I often “wander how many of us pause a moment to consider what the pioneer clays meant to those who made It possible for us to enjoy so many miles of gravel and pavement today as well as modern modes of travel, etc. Many are yet living who will doubtless remember with happy, perhaps sad, or even tragic recollections, the place called “Meridith.”

Here was erected in a night so to speak, the busiest, most prosperous, but wildest little lumbering town in Central Michigan. It was located about sixteen miles north of Harrison and eighteen miles south of Houghton Lake. It was about forty years ago that the great pine forest was cut away to make the clearing where the town was to stand, and the first building erected was “The Meridith House,” a large hotel of which Bile Hall was proprietor. Another hotel was built called “The Corrigan,” being named for the Corrigan brothers who were trainmen on, the road which ran into Meridith at that time. Back one of these houses accommodated as high as two hundred men for dinner, averaging one hundred. Joe Black also owned a boarding house doing a good business.

I will name some of the places of business that you may have a fair idea of the property of the town at that time. There were three grocery stores, Rherdon’s general store, Well’s and Stone’s general store, two hardwares, three clothing stores, one, jewelry, three meat markets (one being owned by Sweeny Bros., since living in Mt. Pleasant), two blacksmith shops, one drug store, barber shop, post office, two livery barns doing a big business, skating rink, and dance hall and four or five saloons (which of course prospered greatly). A doctor they were also fortunate enough to have for Dr. Scott was a faithful friend to all.

There were a few things which there seemed to be little time for and some of these were real comfort, beauty, or any kind of religion. The town had been built for a year before there was time to stump the main street. During the three years which Meridith boomed, no church of any denomination was built. A few meetings were held in an old blacksmith shop by a traveling minister (the blacksmith being kind enough to loan his building for the services). Later Mr. Sweeny opened the doors of his home to those who wished to have church services there.

Most of the working class were French and Irish. Consequently many were the hard fought battles between the two nationalities. Although every one worked hard and sometimes under great difficulties, they had their amusements as well, dancing being the foremost of these. Billy Glasscoe did the fiddling and when there was no fiddling to do Billy did nothing at all. Joe Hatfield the barber played the banjo. Often the logging train took all who wished to go out to Well’s and Stone headquarters/ a distance of about twelve miles, to dances held there. Those who remember Meridith will miss the mention of another well known but horrible name, “Jim Carr’s Place.” From here both men and women agents were sent out to hire young girls to work in lumbering town boarding houses offering large wages as an extra inducement. They were brought here, where, when they entered, a heavy door closed behind them which they could never opened again. Their parents and friends knew nothing of them thereafter, it being as if the earth had opened up and completely swallowed them. A number of blood hounds were kept and one girl was killed in trying to make her escape. One and only one did succeed in getting away and reaching friends in Harrison, and she afterward told her story. Jim Carr died in an old blacksmith shop and later his wife died deserted and alone in an old building without friends or money.

One day last summer as I was driving through that part of the country I stopped at the spot where Meridith at one time stood and I thought how impossible it seemed that those waving fields of grain and green meadows were at one time a hustling prosperous town. There is but one little old building left to mark the spot, nothing else to tell us that this quiet, this lonely place had once been broken by the sound of the axe and saw cutting the large standing pine, the tramp of many hoofs, and the tread of busy feet.

Ellen Graham

Clare Sentinel, June 22, 1928  http://condor.cmich.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/claresent2/id/22586/rec/3