Michigan historical collections. [Vol. 17]

322

ANNUAL MEETING, 1890.

As the natural market for all the products of the forest was Chicago
and other ports on the west side of the lake, it followed that the merchandise needed in western Michigan was bought there, and thus originated
those close commercial relations between the two sections that continue
to the present day, despite the numerous railways from the east that
now penetrate every part of the State.
As before stated, the active development of the western half of the State
dates from about 1850, and was largely dependent on the products,
of the forest. There are no reliable data upon which can be based
anything more than approximate estimates of the amount and value of
the lumber that has been shipped from western Michigan.
I have found in a recent paper a statement of the amount of logs
handled by the boom company in Grand Rapids since 1869, which I
have no doubt is correct. It aggregates 2,000,000,000 feet, and does
not include the large quantity sawed in the interior for home use, that
did not pass through the boom of that company. Add to this the
lumber produced during the previous thirty years of which no record
was kept, and it is safe to say that fully 4,000,000,000 and perhaps
5,000,000,000 feet of pine lumber have passed down Grand river alone.
Add to this the shipments from Muskegon and Manistee and the
numerous other smaller streams that empty into Lake Michigan, compared with which, the output from Grand river seems trifling, and
you have an aggregate that seems incredible. I do not like to tax
your credulity with a statement of what I believe to have been the
value of the timber taken from the soil of western Michigan during
the last fifty years. It is within my knowledge that there was a time
when the control of all this vast wealth, and I may say, the destiny of
western Michigan was in danger of passing into the hands of a private
corporation, in this way: At the close of the Mexican war, about 1850,
the country was flooded with "Mexican land warrants," so called,
issued to soldiers who served in that war. Each warrant was good for
160 acres of land, and the market price for them was often as low as
$100. Two residents of the Grand river valley tried to enlist sufficient
capital to buy enough of those warrants to locate all the valuable pine
timber in western Michigan, tributary to the streams that flowed
westward.
It was estimated that from $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 would be required.
The disastrous result of the speculation in western lands made some
twelve or fifteen years previous seemed to be yet fresh in the minds
of moneyed men applied to, and the project failed. A few years later,
the money could have been bad, but the opportunity for a gigantic