THE STATE REVIEW. 



Passing of Cork Pine. 



Referring to the recent sale of a bunch of 100 

 cork pine trees, located in Elkton township, Tus- 

 cola county, E. D. Cowles, the veteran lumber 

 statistician of the Saginaw Valley, says in the 

 Bay City Tribune that this tract is undoubted!) 

 the last of the famous Cass river cork pine. In 

 its day the pine lumber from this stream had no 

 equal in all the world and when the lumbering 

 on the stream was at its best the product brought 

 the highest price of any produced in the west. 

 And yet in 1858 Cass river cork pine logs were 

 sold in the Saginaw valley market at $2.50, $4 

 and $5 a thousand feet, nothing containing a knot 

 being accepted and logs must scale at least 18 

 inches at the top. Such lumber as those logs 

 produced would bring on the market today close 

 to $100 a thousand. 



The rise and fall of lumbering on Cass river 

 covers a period of 70 years, and during that 

 period the finest growth of cork pine timber in 

 the United States has been swept away and one 

 of the finest agricultural sections of the state has 

 taken the place of the solemn stillness of the dark 

 green forests. Cass river was not so prolific of 

 timber as many other Michigan streams yet it 

 made a respectable showing and its name and 

 fame in point of quality will live as long as the 

 annals of Michigan lumbering are preserved. 

 The first pine logs cut on Cass river to stock a 

 saw mill was in 1S36. In that year Perry & Kurd 

 built a saw mill on Perry creek, near the village 

 of Tuscola, the stream being a tributary of Cass 

 river. Subsequently E. W. Perry purchased the 

 interest of his partner and continued operations. 



The mill was constructed primarily to supply 

 the local demand for lumber, that section be- 

 ginning to attract settlers, but even the limited 

 capacity of the mill was more than sufficient to 

 supply the wants of the locality and as the stock 

 accumulated Mr. Perry sought means to get it to 

 market. Cass river at that time was obstructed 

 by driftwood and snags, and before any attempt 

 was made to clear the stream Mr. Perry made 

 up and ran the lumber down the stream in the 

 form of small cribs, that being prior to the in- 

 auguration of log rafting, and succeeded in 

 reaching Saginaw with the greater portion of his 

 stock, where a cargo of 60,000 feet was loaded 

 on the schooner Loraine, Captain Pool, and ship- 

 ped to Cleveland where it was sold and Perry 

 received his pay. In isn9 he shipped another 

 cargo to Detroit, but before he got returns the 

 bankrupt law of 1840 became effective and the 

 purchaser of the lumber paid for it in a bank- 

 rupt's notice. 



The first saw logs of any amount rafted down 

 Cass river was in the spring of 1847. The previ- 

 ous year Curtis Emerson, a gentleman named 

 Rockwood and James Eldridge, bought the old 

 yellow mill just below the site of the present city 

 hall at Saginaw, and in the fall sent an experi- 

 enced Maine lumberman named Daggett up Cass 

 river to make selections of timber which it was 

 proposed to purchase and stock the mill. Dag- 

 gett went over the territory and returned with a 

 doleful story to the effect that there was not 

 enough timber available on Cass river to furnish 

 logs for a saw mill to run three years, and yet 

 27 years later there was more than 100,000,000 

 feet of saw logs rafted out of Cass river in a 

 single season. But Mr. Daggett found" a patch 

 of timber which he said would furnish logs for 

 the mill for one season so it was purchased, a 

 road was cut to the timber, camp started and 

 logging began. The camp was located within 80 

 rods of the site of the present court house at 

 Caro. The difficulties encountered in hauling 

 supplies to that camp were herculean. Every 

 pound of feed for man and beast had to be toted 

 from Saginaw, one-half of the way through 

 a dense wilderness with only a rough road cut 

 through. There was no baled hay those days 

 and by the time a load of loose hay had been 



toted through the woods the limbs of the trees 

 had pulled away a good portion thereof. 



But the early woodsman was equal to the oc- 

 casion and a good stock of the famous cork pine 

 of the Cass was put into the stream and in the 

 spring floated down to Saginaw, where it was 

 manufactured into lumber. During the season 

 of 1S47 a full cargo of this lumber was shipped 

 by Eldridge & Co., to C. P. Williams & Co., at 

 Albany, N. Y. It was the first full cargo of clear 

 white pine lumber that ever reached the Albany 

 market and the fame of Cass river cork pine 

 was established. 



Following this a number of small saw mills 

 were erected along Cass river and Saginaw and 

 Bay City mill owners bought timber and lum- 

 bered on the stream, running the logs down to 

 their mills. In 1862 John G. Hubinger was oper- 

 ating a small water mill at Frankenmuth and 

 Hubinger Bros, operate a small custom saw mill 

 there at the present time, which supplies the 

 local demand for hardwood lumber, the pine 

 having long since disappeared. Hidley & Robin- 

 son at Bridgeport operated a saw mill in 1863 

 which manufactured 4,000,000 feet. Then there 

 was Heartt's saw mill at Wahjamega, the A. 

 Watrous mill at Watrousville ; Townsend North's 

 saw mill, and Bunnell & Bishop's mill at Vassar, 

 all being of limited capacity, and with the ex- 

 ception of the two first mentioned having an ag- 

 gregate season capacity of not to exceed 5.000,000 

 feet. The product of these mills mostly found a 

 market at Bay City and Saginaw. 



The Huron Log Booming Co. was organized 

 in 1864 to raft and deliver the log output of Cass 

 river, it having been demonstrated that logs 

 could be handled by organized effort much more 

 effectively and economically. This company 

 wound up its operations in the early eighties and 

 later individuals rafted their own stock, the pine 

 having been pretty well cleaned away by 1885. 

 From 1864 to 1891 inclusive, there was rafted out 

 of Cass river 883.000,000 feet of saw logs. From 

 1846 to 1864 it is estimated that approximately 

 200,000,000 feet of logs were cut in the territory 

 tributary to this stream and either rafted down 

 or manufactured at various points on the river. 

 Since 1891 the output has been almost exclusively 

 hemlock and hardwood and has not exceeded 

 5,000,000 feet in a single season, ranging from 

 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 feet, although a few hun- 

 dred thousand feet have been manufactured an- 

 nually at small mills up the river. The coming 

 winter it is calculated about 3,000,000 feet of tim- 

 ber will be secured. 



From the inception of lumbering in the Cass 

 river region to date there has been cut approxi- 

 mately one billion, one hundred and twenty-five 

 million feet of lumber. The largest output in a 

 single year was in 1873, when 100,458,140 feet of 

 logs were rafted out. 



LIMITS OF FIRE INSURANCE. 



In a fire insurance policy the sum insured mere- 

 ly marks the maximum liability accepted by the 

 insurance company and determines the premium 

 to be paid; it is not in any way admitted by the 

 insurance office as a measure of the value of the 

 property insured. 



If I have a life policy for 5,000, says a writer 

 in the Nineteenth Century, my heirs can, on 

 proof of my death and their title, receive over 

 the counter at least 5,000 ; possibly more, if 

 there are any bonuses. If I have a ship and I in- 

 sure her at Lloyds or with marine insurance com- 

 panies for 5,000, I can recover the full 5,000 

 at once should my ship be totally lost. 



But if I insure my house against fire for .">,- 

 000 I cannot' recover 5.000 unless it should 

 happen that I can prove the house to be worth 

 fullv that sum. All that I am entitled to demand 

 is the actual value of my house immediaU'lv be- 

 fore it was burned, and I must give every assist- 

 ance to the insurance company in order that the 

 actual value may be justly determined. 



By statute the insurance company has the 

 power to reinstate that house as far as the sum 

 insured will go instead of paying me anything, 

 and third parties interested also have the right to 

 call upon the insurance office to rebuild my hor.-e. 



In practice, compensation is usually agreed and 



paid in cash without recourse on either side to 

 tlie right of reinstatement, but in o case am I 

 entitled to more than the actual value of :,iy ,iouse 

 as it existed just before the fire. 



"HONOR AMONG THIEVES." 



"Honor among thieves!" a Wall street broker 

 snorted contemptuously. "Of course, there isn't 

 any. And it doesn't matter whether one is talking 

 of common pickpockets or of those sharp fel- 

 lows that get their money some other way. 



"Let me tell you an instance I heard 'of this 

 afternoon. There are two men who while they 

 are not partners, have joint control of a large 

 business. One of them got mixed up in a min- 

 ing company out west somewhere. 



"He put $20,000 into it before he found out that 

 it was no good. It nearly made him sick abed 

 when he knew the truth, but he didn't say a word 

 to his associate. 



"On the contrary he suddenly became abso- 

 lutely non-communicative about his mining ven- 

 ture; so much so that his friend suspected that 

 something was up. Pretty soon Jones, we'll call 

 him, the owner of the mining stock, began to 

 ask the stenographer to stay after hours so as to- 

 dictate letters to the managers of the mine. These 

 letters he always insisted upon mailing himself 

 after they had been copied in a private letter book 

 which he kept locked in his own particular safe. 



"Brown, his associate, noticed all this and tried 

 to pump the stenographer, but it did no good. 

 One night he had to return to his office for some 

 paper that he had forgotten, and. glancing around, 

 saw Jones's private letter book lying on the table. 



"The temptation was too much for him and 

 he took a hurried glance through it. He saw 

 numberless allusions to the discovery of a bon- 

 anza, untold millions in sight; got to keep it quiet 

 until everything was arranged and all the stock 

 corraled, etc. 



"That was enough for Brown. He never said 

 a word to Jones next day, but quietly, very quiet- 

 ly, went to work and started to buy all the stock 

 in Jones' mine that he could get hold of. He found 

 that one curb broker was the only one that 

 seemed to know anything about it and that the 

 stock was firm at above par. 



"Little by little he got the stock in during the 

 next four weeks. In all that time he went down 

 to the office at night just twenty-four times and 

 found Jones's letter book carelessly left out just 

 twice. 



"Jones's letters told the manager that some one 

 was trying to get control of the stock, accused 

 him of bad faith and so on. At any rate it con- 

 firmed Brown in the belief that he was going to 

 make a pot of money, and he kept on buying 

 mining stock until he had about $50,000 planted. 



"He was beginning to get feverish, but didn't 

 dare ask his business associate anything about 

 the property for fear of exciting suspicion. One 

 morning he got down to the office late after a bad 

 night of worry. When he opened the door and 

 said good morning to Jones, Jones's face was 

 wreathed in smiles. 



"'What's up?" says Brown. 'You're as chip- 

 per as a spring lamb ' 



" 'Matter,' answers Jones, with a gurgling laugh. 

 'You remember that Mixed Ale Consolidated Min- 

 ing and Smelting Company that I told you about 

 putting some money into a while ago ? Well, I 

 thought I was bumped good and hard on that 

 deal, and just as I was about to write 'Finis : 

 Good-by,' on the account in my private ledger 

 some sucker comes along and little by little gets 

 hold of all my stock. I reluctantly parted with 

 the last share of it yesterday and instead of be- 

 ing out $'20,000 I am ahead just $30,000 on the 

 deal. More power to him, whoever he is ! I wish 

 iiim joy with his Mixed Ale.' 

 "'Why, isn't the property all right?' 

 " 'All right ! Why, they put a shot of dynamite 

 ;n the pay streak a while ago and blew all trace 

 of it into kingdom come. About the only use that 

 the owner could make of the shaft now would be 

 to fall down it and break his neck.' 



"Brown turned pale. He swallowed hard a 



Few times, turned on his heel without a word 



ind entered his own office and slammed the door. 



don't know what he said or thought when he 



was alone, but you can imagine." 



