THE DESTINY OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 



BY HON. WM. L. WEBBER OF EAST SAGINAW, AND READ AT THE LAK- 



SING MEETING, FEBRUARY, 1875. 



Gentlemen : — As Patrick Henry observed in one of the discussions preced- 

 ing the Revolution, now an hundred years since, "I know no way of judging 

 the future but by the past." Allow me, therefore, to call your attention to somo 

 facts of the past and some of the present, and from a consideration of thea« 

 facts we shall have no difficulty in judging of the probable future. 



The State of Michigan embraces an area, as reported by the Commissioner 

 of the General Land Office of the United States, of 36,128,640 acres, of whick 

 approximately ten and a half million acres are contained in the Upper 

 Peninsula leaving about twenty-five and a half million acres for the Lower 

 Peninsula. 



Although the Upper Peninsula, an empire by itself, might properly be called 

 Northern Michigan, yet the expression, as ordinarily used, is confined to the 

 Lower Peninsula, and has heretofore been applied to that portion of the Lower 

 Peninsula which is in fact the central portion thereof. 



WHAT AND WHERE IS " NORTHERN MICHIGAN ?'' 



In 1837 the Legislature passed "An act providing for the construction of 

 certain works of internal improvement, and for other purposes," by which it 

 was provided that surveys should be made for three railroad routes across the 

 Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the first to commence at Detroit, and to termi- 

 nate at the mouth of the St. Joseph river on Lake Michigan, to be called the 

 Central railroad; the second to commence at the navigable waters of the River 

 Raisin, and, passing through Monroe, to terminate at New BufiTalo, to be called 

 the Southern Railroad ; the third to commence at the mouth of Black River, 

 now Port Huron, and to terminate at the navigable waters of Grand River, ia 

 Kent county, or on Lake Michigan, now Grtuid Haven, and to be called the 

 Northern Railroad. At that time the line of the Northern Railroad, as above 

 designated, extended through what was known as Northern Michigan. As a 

 matter of lact, however, about three-fifths of the area of the Lower Peninsula 

 lies north of that line. If the Lower Peninsula be divided by a line equi- 

 distant between the southern boundary of the State and the Straits of Mack- 

 inaw, being a line on the north side of town 15 north, extending through the 

 northern part of the counties of Midland, Isabella, Mecosta, Newaygo and 

 Oceana, it will be seen that in the Lower Peninsula lying north of that line 



