Between the Iron and the Pine; a Biography of a Pioneer Family and a Pioneer Town
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Library of Congress Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town Dudes of the Nineties Between the Iron and the Pine A BIOGRAPHY of A PIONEER FAMILY and A PIONEER TOWN BY LEWIS C harles . REIMANN F572 .N8R5 Copy 2 Copyright 1951 Lewis C. Reimann This book was especially in a limited Edition for the Iron Ore Centennial by Lewis C. Reimann 2504 Brockman Boulevard Ann Arbor, Michigan Additional copies may be obtained by writing to the above address. 51-8574 Lithoprinted in U.S.A. EDWARDS BROTHERS, INC. ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 1951 A 60918 iii DEDICATION This factual account of my boyhood days in Iron River, Michigan, is dedicated to my loving Mother who bore me, nursed me, cared for me, guided me through my youth and believed in me. To her I owe all that I am and all that I aspire to be. It was she who bore the burden of a large family, suffered when we were hurt, comforted us in our disappointments, deprived herself so we might have more, and saw her hopes and dreams come true when her children fulfilled her fondest hopes. My sainted Mother, my guide and inspiration. v Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08574 Library of Congress FOREWORD When a Chicago financier was invited in the early Eighties to invest his money in the infant iron mining and lumber industries of Iron County of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, he sniffed: “Iron County? Hell, it's too far away from anywhere to ever amount to anything!” Little did this man of money expect that the giant white pine of that virgin land would go into the building of most of the homes of his native Chicago and other thriving young cities of the middle west. Nor that the iron ore dug from its fabulously rich mines result in the defeat of the Kaiser and Hitler. He had no way of knowing Iron River was to be the home of Carrie Jacobs Bond whose songs were to sung the world over. Nor that I, one of the Reimann Baker's Dozen, would write this saga of the North seventy years after he made his brash statement. How did all this come about? How did this backwoods community, hidden in the dark pine- covered hills in that far-away land, become a great factor in the building of this nation? Well, here is the tale, written in a distant city by the author as he sits before his fireplace recalling his boyhood days at the turn of the Century. If the language is rough in spots and the scenes are rugged at the times, it is my design to present the life of the day as it really was. If some of the characters and events resemble some of the real events and characters of the past, living or dead, it is purely intentional. The Author vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08574 Library of Congress While this book was written out of my own recollections of the early days in the Iron River District, may others have contributed to its success by refreshing my memory on some of the history and anecdotes and by assisting me in finding some of the “Oldtimers” who were free in telling me about those early days of struggle “Between The Iron and The Pine.” Among those who contributed this valuable material were Jim Murphy of Elmwood, Mrs. A. W. Quirt, her daughter Mrs. Lila Quirt Purcell, Mrs. Hjalmer Magnet, Bob Solberg, my brother William Reimann and his daughter, Ruth, Leslie Fisher, Mrs. Herbert Fisher, John J. Corbett, Joe Brown, John Ennis, John Westerberg, Mannie Krans, George Breen, Dominic Dascola, Io Oshins, Gus Ruus, Mary Lorenz, Otis Meehan, Mrs. Kathryn Richardson Chandler, Charles E. Good and many others. Others were Walter F. Gries of Ishpeming, who contributed some Cousin Jack tales, N. J. Nolden of Escanaba for Indian stories, Martin LaVoilette of Stambaugh, mining stories, Mary Mertins for her story on the Stealing the Court House, Alto P. W. Hewett for Choose Your Partners, William Duchane, editor of the Escanaba Daily Press for the Dan Seavey story, Charlie Larson of Escanaba for some Finnish stories, and for editorial advice were George Reeves, the author of “The Man From South Dakota”, Clarence H. Dykeman, author, and Professor Carlton F. Wells of the University of Michigan. These good people have my gratitude for helping to make this saga a success. ix CONTENTS CHAPTER Page I BETWEEN THE IRON AND THE PINE 1 A Boy's Eye View Cheaper By The Baker's Dozen Over The Hill Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08574 Library of Congress II THE PINE 15 Getting Loused Up In The Lumber Camp Men O’ The Woods Lumber Camp Personnel Cutting the Big Stuff The Spring Drive Stealing Timber III THE IRON 53 The First While Explorers Red Underground Mining On The Range They Wanted Timber Fright A Strange Banquet Big Fritz V HOME OF THE BRAVE 77 Little Sweden Semi-Pioneer Life Our Finnish Friends Irish Neighbors Cousin Jack Tales Kentucky Moonshiners Celebrating the Fourth Choose Your Partners V LAND OF THE FREE 105 Growing Our Own Village Animal Life A-Berrying We Went Meat For The Winter Earning Spending Money Without Modern Conveniences Local Color Playboys Of The Nineties Six Months of Winter x Our Western Bronchos My Worst Runaway Winter Sports The Fire Fighters Folklore and Superstitions Stealing The Courthouse Our Organized Athletics School Daze I'll Never Forget When— Indian Incidents VI THE MEN WHO WERE— 175 The Town Marshal Dan Seavey—Lumberman and Pirate “Pigface” Conley and His Contemporaries Jim Murphy—Woodsman Supreme “H'African” Bill Men About Town Fabulous Characters Pat Kelly's General Store The Oldest Profession I Remember When— The Sharpened Tongue Billy, The Blacksmith, and Hay, The Baker The Birch Bark Will VII ABSENTEES 219 The Songbird Of The North Chapter I BETWEEN THE IRON AND THE PINE A Boy's Eye View Cheaper By The Baker's Dozen Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08574 Library of Congress Over The Hill 3 Chapter I BETWEEN THE IRON AND THE PINE A Boy's Eye View The little boy log house, in which most of the Reimann tribe saw their first light of day unattended by a doctor, stood on the peak of mile-high Stambaugh Hill overlooking the Iron River valley and the stream below. It was a crude two-story cabin with a sleeping attic and an attached log barn, just a speck in the surrounding wilderness of pine, hemlock and maple. The young village of Iron River lay below in a triangular piece of ground, hemmed in tightly on two sides by dark towering, timbered hills and by a little stream, called the Iron, on the third. On all sides as far as our eyes could reach was the vast forest extending over the rugged hills. The giant white pines topped the hard-wood undergrowth like a velvet cloth laid over the landscape, waving and undulating when the north winds blew across them, a soft vista of green and black. Roads radiated out in several directions from the scattered town, - highways over which rugged men and great teams struggled to bring down the millions of logs to the rollways on the river bank and to the steaming sawmill at the edge of wilderness. To the northwest and the southwest rose the dark upper structures of mining shafts and great stockpiles of red iron ore drug from the bowels below the ground which once was covered by a virgin forest. Between the Iron and the Pine men struggled to wrest a living. Lumberjacks came from the woods of Maine and the forests of men northern Europe and miners of England's Cornwall and south-Europe; and others, like my father, came without previous skill at either industry, Between the iron and the pine; a biography of a pioneer family and a pioneer town http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08574 Library of Congress to make places for themselves wherever they could in the crisp and rugged environment which lived essentially on lumber and iron ore. To the men who worked the mines and the woods for pay, life in the Northern Peninsula was harsh and demanding, and the goal was one of wealth distant, but to a boy who saw only people, people with familiar names and familiar faces, life was vivid and colorful. The Main Street of Iron River appropriately enough was paved with red iron ore rock and its walks were of plank from the green pine forests, but the color I saw then and remember now was the color of the people. If on an early morning I were to follow the red iron rock topped road down Stambaugh Hill as the fog lifted off the Iron River stream, cross the little plank bridge to the village and walk up the hill to Main Street, I would come first to Frank Camin's ice house and root- cellar beer vault, where Frank's big steel-grey Percheron stood patiently hitched to the beer wagon preparatory to supplying the local saloons with the cooling “brew the made Milwaukee famous”, kegs piled high and topped with chunks of lake ice mixed with marsh hay to keep the contents cool.