MARQUETTE COUNTY. 405 



approved April 7th, 1851, which provided for the election of the proper 

 officers on the second Monday in June, 1851. 



The county seat is Marquette, which was named from the Jesuit, Pere 

 Marquette, one of the earliest and most noted of the French missionaries and 

 explorers. 



The first discovery of iron ore occurred, in this county, in the year 1844, 

 an account of which is given under the head of the upper peninsula. The 

 first iron was made from these ores in August, 1846, by Mr. Olds, of Coo- 

 Cush prairie. (Vol. 8, Pioneer Collections, p. 148.) 



In this volume, at pages 149 to 151, Hon. Peter White says, in substance: 

 *'In the spring of 1849, on the present site of the city of Marquette, there 

 was no sign of a human habitation, save one or two Indian huts and a small 

 log warehouse belonging to the Jackson Iron Company. 



" In April, 1840, we started from what is now the city of Marquette, and, 

 at the Cleveland mountain, found Captain Samuel Moody and John H. Mann, 

 who had spent the previous summer and winter there." He well recollects 

 how astonished he was the next morning when Captain Moody asked him to 

 go with him to dig some potatoes for breakfast. This was in the month of 

 May, and the winter's snow had preserved them. He opened one or two hills 

 and filled his pail with large and perfectly sound potatoes. He then said : 

 " I may as well pull up a few parsnips and carrots for dinner, to save coming 

 up again; " and, sure enough, he had them in abundance. 



He returned to the lake shore on the 10th of July, and at 1 o'clock of that 

 day they commenced to clear the site of the present city of Marquette. 



In 1851-'3 Marquette consisted of a few houses, a stumpy road winding 

 along the lake shore, a forge which burned up after impoverishing its first 

 owners, a trail westward, just passable for wagons, leading to another forge 

 (still more unfortunate in that it did not burn) and to the developed iron 

 hills beyond, with two or three hundred people uncertain of the future, who 

 had fallen into the march of the century and were building better than they 

 knew. 



Alexander Campbell, of Marquette says: (Pioneer Collections, vol. 3, 

 pages 249, 250 and 251. ) '' Very generally this part of the country is uneven, 

 rocky and mountainous. In going from Marquette by railroad to the iron 

 mountains the locomotive the first thirteen miles carries you up an elevation 

 of eight hundred and fifty feet above the level of the lake, frequently present- 

 ing bold, stair-like cliffs, affording many scenes of wild, picturesque beauty. 



*'At Marquette, all who have engaged in farming reap good crops of hay, 

 oats, potatoes, turnips, etc., in a ready market at good prices and good pay, 

 for until this branch of industry produces an excess of these staples they will 

 bring twenty-five per cent more in that market than the same articles do 

 below. Within the last two years quite a settlement of farmers has been 

 formed a few miles south of Marquette, on the Chocolate river, and already 

 they are reaping better returns than thousands of new settlers of the same 

 age in more salubrious latitudes. In this locality there is a large tract of 

 very desirable country, the soil being a rich loam, the timber mostly large 

 sized maple, the face of the land comparatively even, with living springs and 

 small streams of the best water on almost every quarter section." 



Mr. Campbell saw, at Marquette, in October, a Norfolk turnip raised by D. 

 Bishop, one and a half miles from town, weighing twenty pounds. 



C. D. Lawton, who is familiar with the upper peninsula, says: "I have 



