Migrating to Michigan Read online

  A man was leading a horse and sled down an ice-covered trail. When the sled passed us, I could see water sprinkling out of a tank on the back. I guessed the icy road would be used for hauling logs.

  “Let’s pull our heads back and get warmed up,” said the professor. His breath was frosty when he spoke.

  When we came out of the green cloud, I put my hands over my ears to warm them up.

  “Whew,” said Owen, “my nose was freezing.”

  The professor stepped behind his desk and typed in some new information on his laptop. “While we warm ourselves I’m going to change our location and time a little bit. We’ll be a mile or so from the camp and in the early spring of the year. I want to show you how the shanty boys got trees to the sawmill.”

  “What’s a shanty boy?” Rachel asked.

  “Shanty boy is another term for logger or lumberjack,” answered the professor.

  Once our ears and noses warmed up, we took a second peek into the past. Like the professor said, we were in a different place and at a different time. It was still cold, but it was not as cold as before.

  We were near a high bank that ran alongside a river. Huge logs were in neat, tall stacks on the bank. A man walked carefully among the stacks of logs. Then he took what looked like a hammer and struck each log soundly before moving on to the next pile of timber.

  While the man with the hammer kept at his task, other men and animals worked together to roll the logs to the edge of the bank. Long poles and horses pushed the logs over the edge. They rolled down the steep bank and splashed into the river below. In the river, there were men standing on the floating logs. They were separating the logs with long poles that had hooks and points on the end. I wondered how they could possibly keep their balance on those logs in a moving river.

  As logs were rolled down the bank, more were being delivered. Large loads of logs chained to sleds were being pulled by teams of horses along one of the ice roads. While we watched, a horn blared in the distance. When the men heard it, they stopped their work and started running in the direction of the sound. I wondered what was going on.

  The professor made a sign that it was time to go.

  Copper Country Chat

  The Professor’s Office—Today

  The professor made himself some tea and poured some milk for us. Then he opened a bag of cookies. Yum!

  Professor Tuesday smacked his lips as he nibbled on a cookie and sipped his tea. “Lumbering and mining in the state of Michigan drew thousands of immigrants looking for work. Many came thinking they would make their fortune and then use the money to buy their own farm or start a business.” Professor Tuesday looked at Owen and me. “What did you think of Houghton, Michigan?”

  “It was cold, rainy, and muddy,” Rachel said. “The mine looked dirty and dangerous. I didn’t like going there at all.”

  Mister Adams cupped his hands in front of himself and moved them forward.

  “You were paying attention,” said the professor. “Mister Adams said that he saw a boat.”

  “It was a tall ship,” Owen said. “You know, with sails and stuff. I’ve seen them before, when my family visited Traverse City and Bay City.”

  “Yes,” replied the professor. “Though there were many steamships operating on the Great Lakes in 1866, cargo and passengers were still carried by sailing ships. It looked like they were taking food and supplies off the ship and loading barrels of copper onto it. On May 31, 1855, the Soo Locks and the canal around the St. Mary’s Rapids were completed. This opened up Lake Superior and the Upper Peninsula to greater trade. At the same time, it allowed immigrants, like miners and lumberjacks, easier travels to that part of the state.”

  The professor turned to Owen. “What was our purpose for visiting Houghton, Michigan, and a lumber camp near Oscoda, Michigan?”

  “To see some Finnish immigrants,” Owen answered.

  “That’s true,” said the professor, “but I also wanted to show you how the availability of jobs in Michigan drew immigrants from many countries. In June of 1865, about thirty Finns arrived by boat at Houghton, Michigan, in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Many of the men who had worked at the mine up until that time had gone off to fight in the American Civil War, so the mine needed help.”

  “Professor, I’m just curious. When was copper discovered in the Upper Peninsula in the first place?” Owen asked.

  “Native Americans first found copper there thousands of years ago,” answered Professor Tuesday. “They used it to make tools, pots, and other things. In 1841, a state geologist named Douglass Houghton visited the area to investigate rumors that there was copper in the Keweenaw Peninsula. A year later, the native Chippewa people sold their rights to 25,000 square miles west of Marquette, Michigan, under the Treaty of La Pointe. Houghton’s findings and the availability of this land led to a rush of prospectors, miners, and settlers.

  “One of the favorite ways early prospectors used for finding copper was to look for old pits that had been dug by native people. One man, named Sam Knapp, stumbled on a large clearing in the forest in 1848. When he dug through the snow, Sam found the opening of a man-made cave. He and his friends explored the cave and found stone hammers and ancient mining tools. In the center of the cave was a huge nugget of copper. Sam Knapp’s discovery of that old copper mine resulted in one of the most profitable copper mines in history. It was called the Minesota Mine. Somehow, a clerk spelled the word Minnesota wrong. That’s how the mine got its funny spelling.”

  “There was one particular piece of copper that the native people found long before the Europeans came to Michigan,” added the professor. “It came to be called the Ontonagon Boulder because it was found on the Ontonagon River. It weighed about 3,000 pounds. Today what is left of that boulder is kept at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.”

  “So, Finns were the miners in Copper Country,” Owen said.

  “The Finns were just some of the many people who worked in the copper mines,” said Professor Tuesday. “Finns, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Irish, Cornish, and others came to the North Country. They all had to learn to work together, overcome their differences, and get along. The same was true in the lumber camps of Michigan.”

  Talking Timber

  The Professor’s Office—Today

  The professor took another sip of tea before continuing, “What do you remember from the lumber camp visit?”

  “We saw some buildings. They didn’t look like they were very well built,” I said.

  The professor nodded. “The buildings used in the lumber camps were made to be put up and taken down quickly. They would build a camp near where the trees were being cut. When all the trees near the camp were cut, the buildings would be taken down and re-built in the next cutting area.”

  “Did you smell the cookhouse?” asked the professor. We all nodded our heads. “I love the smell of bacon and pancakes. I have two pancakes for dinner every Tuesday.”

  “Just a minute, I’ve got a food question about Copper Country,” Rachel said. “What was that pie that the miners were eating for lunch?”

  “Oh, that was a pasty,” said the professor. “It’s a Cornish food that looks like a piecrust stuffed with meat, potato, rutabaga, and onion. Pasties were a favorite food of miners and lumberjacks because it was easy to carry and eat … even in a mine. Now, let’s talk more about the lumber camp.

  “I saw a stable,” Owen said.

  “Very good,” replied the professor. “Horses and oxen were important work animals in the lumber camps and the mines. Animals were treated very well because they needed them to stay healthy and strong.”

  “It seemed like I heard a lot of different languages in both places,” Owen said.

  “Excellent,” said the professor. “It sounded to me like the foreman in the lumber camp, the man shouting orders, was German. He was speaking English, but not very well. The men cutting down the pine tree were French-Canadian, I think.”

  “My father can speak three diffe
rent languages,” Rachel said.

  The professor continued, “Sometimes, communicating was difficult in the camps due to all the different languages. But they learned to get along and work as teams. Communication between the workers was important because logging and copper mining are so very dangerous.”

  “What was that guy doing with the horse and the sleigh with a sprinkler?” I asked.

  “He was building up the ice road,” said the professor. “When the shanty boys would cut down trees, they would cut the tree trunk into lengths that would be easy to work with at the mills. The shanty boys would load the logs onto sleds, and teams of horses or oxen would pull the heavy loads over the ice road to a nearby river.”

  “So, that’s why they worked in the winter months,” I said. “That way they could build the ice roads making it easier to haul the logs. That was very smart. But, why did they cut down trees with axes? Wouldn’t it have been easier to use saws to cut down trees?”

  “Yes, it would have been easier and faster,” said the professor. “But saws that cut down trees, called felling saws, weren’t available until many years later. Now let’s talk about what you saw on our second trip.”

  “I think it was later in the winter or early spring,” Owen said. “The river down in the valley wasn’t frozen over.”

  “I saw guys rolling logs down the hill. When the logs got to the bottom they rolled right into the river,” Rachel added.

  “Shanty boys who broke the piles of logs and sent them rolling down the banks into the river were called ‘roll camp boys.’” The professor looked very excited. “The place you saw was called a ‘rollaway.’ It is located on the Au Sable River near what you may know as Oscoda, Michigan. Throughout the winter months, the shanty boys would cut down trees. Other workers would haul the logs to the rollaway and stack them up until spring. When the ice on the rivers and lakes started to melt away, roll camp boys would send the logs down to the river. This type of logging was called ‘river logging’ because the river was needed to move the logs to the mills.”

  “What was that guy doing with the hammer?” Owen asked. “Was he just whacking each log for luck or something?”

  “Good question,” said the professor. “He was marking the logs. Each lumber company had its own mark. It was sort of like a brand. Marks were used to identify who owned which logs.”

  “Who were those dudes on the river?” I asked. “It looked like they were standing on floating logs in the river. That’s crazy. And, what were those poles they were carrying?”

  The professor stroked his long beard. “The men on the river were called ‘river hogs.’ Being a river hog was dangerous, and only the toughest men in camp would ride the logs. River hogs rode the logs from the rollaway down river all the way to the sawmills. Their job was to prevent log jams. They used the poles to keep the logs moving downriver and for balance. Sometimes the log jams were so stubborn the river hogs couldn’t break them. When that happened, they would use dynamite to blow up the log jam and get the logs moving again.”

  “Holy cow,” Owen said, “I wish I could have seen that. I’ll bet some of those logs blew sky high.”

  “They sure did,” added the professor. “Then when the logs finally arrived at the sawmill they were cut into boards.”

  The professor blinked twice before continuing. “The lumber would be stacked and allowed to dry in the sun. When the boards were dry enough, they would be shipped across the Great Lakes to waiting customers.”

  The professor looked at each of us. “After all the work was done for the season, the lumber companies got paid. And, that’s when they paid the shanty boys.”

  “What” I said, “they didn’t get paid until the end of the season? That’s lame.”

  “When they finally did get paid,” the professor said, “they whooped it up in town.” The professor looked at his watch again. “It’s getting late, and there is one more place I want you to see before you go home.”

  Poletown

  Hamtramck, Michigan—May 1882

  The professor rushed to input information for our next trip while Owen and I played a game of catch with Mister Adams.

  “Why are you just sitting there playing a game?” Rachel asked Owen. “We should be talking about our report, not goofing around. I get all As on my report card, you get Bs and Cs. We have to work together on the immigration report, and I don’t want you to mess up my grade.”

  “Get real,” Owen said as he continued playing with Mister Adams.

  While Owen was playing catch with Mister Adams, Rachel took a peek into his journal. The pages were nasty and wrinkled, not neat and clean like hers. Rachel kept careful notes about what she did and saw. Owen scratched a few notes down and drew pictures. Rachel was getting more and more upset.

  Professor Tuesday adjusted the Tuesday Translators one more time before he spoke to us. “We have been very lucky so far,” he said. “No one has been badly hurt or lost.” He looked at Owen and Mister Adams. “We don’t want anyone to wander off or get hurt, now do we?”

  Owen and Mister Adams shook their heads no. Then the professor went to his laptop one last time. He hit the ENTER key and the teleporter popped to life. The globe rattled and hummed. Lights circled the room, and sounds thumped on the air. No matter how many times I’ve been through the teleporter, it is always an exciting adventure.

  We stepped through the green cloud and landed safely in an alleyway. The alley was nothing more than a narrow dirt road carved with deep ruts. Dust clouded up around our ankles as we walked. Off in the distance, we could hear pounding.

  “Be careful where you step,” said the professor. “Horses, cows, and other animals are kept in these alleys.”

  “Yuk,” Rachel said. “I wore my good school clothes and my best shoes. Oh well, they’re already messy from our trip to Houghton.”

  A goose ran out into the alley from behind a small building. Rachel and I screamed and ran to the professor’s side. A woman with a broom chased the goose. She wore a tattered old dress and a scarf on her head. Every time she got close to the goose, it would turn and run in a different direction. It honked loudly as it ran.

  The Tuesday Translator crackled in my ear as she yelled at the goose. “You bad goose, get back to your own yard or we’ll have you for dinner tonight.”

  We all laughed quietly at the funny sight. Then we continued on past small buildings. The air smelled like those animal barns at the fair. Some of the buildings had cows. Some had horses. We even saw a pig and a duck.

  “Come this way,” said Professor Tuesday. “I want you to see this.”

  Rachel and I picked our way carefully through the alley as we followed the professor. We ended up at a house that was being built. The wood that made up the walls was all in place. It looked like a house skeleton. There were about three rooms to the simple house. Men were sitting on narrow boards building the roof. They were calling out for nails and lumber. Every now and then, a man would tell a silly joke and all the others would laugh loudly.

  As the professor, Mister Adams, and Owen were watching the house being built, Rachel and I noticed a girl staring at us from the alley behind us. She looked to be about eleven or twelve years old, but it was hard to tell. Rachel and I decided to talk with her. Maybe it would be helpful in Rachel’s report.

  She was very shy. As we got near, she looked down at her feet. The girl wore a scarf on her head just like the old woman we saw before. Her dress was clean and simple but very old looking. Worn shoes covered her small feet.

  “My name is Rachel,” my friend said.

  “And I am Jesse,” I said to the girl. “What is your name?”

  “Sophia,” she said. “You are not from here. You look very different.”

  “That is correct,” Rachel said. The Polish words that came from the Tuesday Translator sounded funny in my ears. “We are far from home.”

  Sophia looked me over carefully. Then I spoke again, “What do you do each day?”


  “I have much work to do,” Sophia replied.

  “Me, too,” Rachel said. “My mother makes me clean my room and feed our dog every day. Plus, I have homework to do for school.”

  “I must help at home,” Sophia said, “but I also have a job.”

  “A job?” I asked. “What kind of job?”

  “I clean a doctor’s house,” Sophia said as she drew a circle in the dirt with her foot. “I must sweep, dust, and do dishes each day. Of course I also have to make all the beds and watch their small children. I only work six days a week.” She added, “And, the doctor is very generous. He pays me $1.50 every Saturday.”

  “You do all that work for $1.50 a week?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, I am very lucky,” Sophia said. “My wages help my family. The doctor also lets me eat food from his house.”

  I couldn’t believe that a young girl would have a job like that. “If you have a job and work to do at home, when do you have time for school?”

  “I have been to school,” Sophia said. “After I graduated from the third grade, it was time for me to get a job and help my family. Don’t you have a job?”

  I shook my head no. “I just do some chores at home and go to school.”

  Sophia smiled at us. “It has been nice talking with you Rachel, and you, too, Jesse. I have to go now. It is a very long walk to my job, and I must not be late.”

  “It was nice talking with you, Sophia.” My mind was spinning. Not only did she quit school in the third grade to take a job, but she has to walk to and from work each day. We watched Sophia as she went into her house. Things were really different back then.

  We turned down the alleyway again to catch up with the professor, but when we looked up we gasped. The professor, Mister Adams, and Owen were nowhere to be seen. We were in big trouble.