History of Muskegon County, Michigan: with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers.

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HISTORY OF MUSKEGON COUNTY.

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miles up the river. Failing in this they built a saw mill seven
miles above Montague, which was afterwards known as the I. E.
Carleton mill, to whom it was sold, and who operated it until his
death, ill 1871. The mill is all gone to decay.
" About the samle time a small water mill was built on Sand
Creek, near Carleton's, and operated until about 1868.
" The first steam saw mill on the Lake was built at the Mouth
in 1850 by Rev. Winm. M. Ferry, of Grand Haven. Scott & Stebbills ran it by the thousand for several years. Afterwards Major
Noah H. Ferry operated it until his death, at Gettysburg, ill 1863.
Geo. E. Dowling, W. H. Woodbury, and others, assisted him ill the
management, and in 1863 it was sold to Heald, Avery 3& Co., who
afterwards consolidated it with their present mill.
" In the fall of 1855 James Jewell, father-in-law of G. W.
Franklin and I. E. Carleton, built the steam saw mill at Maple
Grove, and in 1860 it was purchased by Heald, Avery & Co.
" In the spring of 1855 Rodgers & Hill built the Long Point
saw mill, and sold it to Luscombe & Pierce in 1859. In 1871 it
was purchased by I. M. & B. F. Weston, and afterwards sold to J.
W. Norton, Major Green & Weston, now owned by Hafer & Weston.
" G. A. Rogers built the Cone mill in 1857, and it has since
been owned by Rathburn & Cone, Cone & O'Brien, H. B. Cone &
Sons, Green & Co., Green, Kelsey & Co., and now by Capt. James
Dalton.
" The old Staples & Covell mill was erected by Mr. Whittaker
and Moses Hall in 1856, sold to Thompson & Covell, then to Wm.
WVeston, Hinchman & Covell, and then to Staples & Covell, who tore
it down in 1875, and erected their new mill not far from the site of
the old.
" No additional mills were erected until 1865, when the lumbering business revived and the following were erected:
" Ferry, Dowling & Co. built their large red saw mill in Montague.
" Lewis & Carless built, in Whitehall, a mill which passed
through the hands of Lewis & Hopkins, Franklin & Lewis, Lewis &
Covell, until it passed into the hands of its present owners, A. J. &
C. E. Covell.
" Parks, Leitch & Co., afterwards W. H. Parks & Son, put up
one which was sold to Fischer & Keller. This mill was burned down
a second time in 1875, and has not been rebuilt.
"In 1866 the shingle mills of Ferry, Dowling & Co. and D. C.
Bowen & Co., and Johnson & Miller, Whitehall, were erected.
" The same year Hedges & Terry built a saw mill in Whitehall,
which was afterwards owned by Hedges Bros., Bowen & Burrows,
and by A. B. Bowen & Co. It was burned in 1877 and not rebuilt.
It stood between Nufer's and Covell's mills.
" In 1867 Dalton Bros. built their steam saw mill in Montague,
on the site of the new mill of Smith & Field, erected in 1880.
" The same year Cook & Pettis moved from Hesperia the mill
now run by C. H. Cook.
" The Hornellsville Lumber Company also built their New York
mill in Whitehall that year, and in 1870 sold to Weston, Smith &
Co., who sold it to the present owners, J. Alley & Co.
" In 1868 Geddes & Co. built a saw mill where R W. Norris'
mill now stands, but the machinery was taken out a few years later

and the site sold to N. V. Booth, who erected there the Norris
shingle mill.
" F. H. White & Co., in 1872, erected a saw mill near Ferry &
Co.'s, in Montague, and Covell, Nufer & Co., now Covell, Ocobock
& Co. erected their shingle mill in 1875.

" This makes a total of eleven saw mills and five shingle mills,
capable of cutting 100,000,000 feet of logs in a season."
THE SAWMILLS IN 1882.
The sawmills of White Lake are in 1882, commencing at the
head of the lake on the Whitehall side and making a circuit: Staples & Covell, circular gang edger and lath mills, the Whitehall
Manufacturing Co., (late Covell, Ocobock & Co's.) shingle and planing, and sash and door mill, R. W. Norris's shingle and planing and
sash and door mill, capacity over 50,000 shingles a day; Johnson
(Chas.) & Miller's shingle mill, capacity 55,000 a day; Mr. Miller
is of Racine, Wis. Linderman's shingle mill and heading and
stave mill (late Linderman, Hewes & Ames,) Nufer & Carleton's
large shingle mill, capacity 125,000 to 150,000 a day; A. J. &
C. E. Covell's one circular and gang edger mill, lath mill attachments. This is one of the best managed mills on the lake, cut
about 12,000,000 feet. After passing the Eagle tannery, an extensive institution, one comes next to what was known as the "New
York Mill," now that of Charles Alley & Co., a fine mill with circular and gang edger, cutting about 50,000 a day. Mr. Philip Van
Keuren has lately purchased the interest of James Alley, of Hornellsville, N. Y. The Wilcox Lumber Co., is the next mill and the latest on the lake, being near the site of the old watermill. It is an
extensive and complete affair. C.apt. Dalton's mill on the southwest corner of the lake has lately been moved to the northern peninsula. Coming up on the north side of the lake we find first at
Long Point, Weston & Hafer's mill, next the neat little mill of
Smith & Field, then C. H. Cooks's circular and gang edger and lath
mill; then the largest mill on the lake, that of Heald, Murphy &
Crepin, which has a circular, an upright, and a gang of about forty
saws, cutting 125,000 feet daily. Next is F. H. White's one circular mill, and lastly the extensive mill of Ferry, Dowling & Co., at
the head of the lake on the Montague side.
Staples & Covell's mill was erected in 1874-5, the main building being 30x120, and 2 stories in height, with 12 feet ceiling. It
has one circular and top saw, one gang edger, one slab saw andlath
mill. The engine room is 30x56, the engine, manufactured by the
Montague Iron Works, cost $3,200, has 28-inch stroke, and three
20-inch boilers 20 feet in length. The smokestack is 4 feet in diameter and 100 feet high. The mill cost without the site
$30,000. This mill is a model of neatness, which is owing to the
watchful supervision of the proprietors and their foreman, Mr. Jesse
Pullman. A fine birds-eye view of the mill appears in this work.
The old Water mill now removed, was the first monument of civilization on White Lake. It was built by C. Mears in 1837, and operated
by one Stanton, then by Mr. Brown, and Mr. Mears sold it to A. M.
Thompson in 1863. After ten years he sold to Howard, and Farnum
Ellwood, of Indiana, took it for his mortgage, sold it to Vary, and he to
Wilcox Co., who in 1881 tore away the dam and built the new sawmill.
The Wilcox Lumbering Co., have built a fine mill and
have placed it out on spiles in the lake about 300 feet. It is fitted
up with all modern improvements and opened in the spring of 1881,
the machinery being shipped from the mill at White Cloud. It is
160x40 feet, has two circulars, two edgers, four trimmers, gang
lath mill, and is conspicuous for its smokestack 102 feet high. It
takes about one hundred men to operate it, and cuts 100,000 feet in
eleven hours. The company is wealthy and had 20,000,000 feet of logs

in the river in 1881. The supervisor of the mill is J. M. Popple;
the foreman, C. K. Stone.
White's saw mill employs forty men. C. Smith, engineer; John
Ohrenberger, filer; J. Hulbert and G. Henderson, head sawyers. It
has upright, circular and edgers, with capacity in eleven hours of 70,

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